The world's biggest carrier, China Mobile, could be getting the iPhone. In a news conference following its quarterly earnings report, the company said it has met with Apple CEO Steve Jobs several times about the possibility of creating an iPhone for its network, Reuters reports.
China Mobile devices run on its own homegrown TD-SCDMA standard, a network not supported by the iPhone. However, even though the phone isn't available on this network, there are still 7.44 million iPhone users on China Mobile, the company said. They just don't get 3G speeds.
But if the talks are any indication, that could soon change. The news from Reuters corroborates a previous rumor from CapitalVue, a Chinese financial news site, that claimed Apple had already signed a deal with China Mobile to launch the iPhone 4 on the carrier by the end of October. CapitalVue claimed that iPhone negotiations between China Mobile and Apple began back in 2007.
Currently, the iPhone is only officially supported on China's second-biggest carrier, China Unicom. Earlier this month, however, Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said a deal between Apple and China Telecom is "imminent ... paving the way for the carrier to participate in the iPhone 5 launch in the fall."
In its earnings report last month, COO Tim Cook called China "very key" to its quarterly revenue and said that sales in the country have increased by more than six times in the past year. China generated $3.8 billion in revenue in the last quarter and $8.8 billion in the last year.
Apple products have become a status symbol in China, and their popularity has reportedly caused a spike in smuggling to satisfy the huge demand for these products. These smugglers are apparently taking extreme measures to sneak iPhones and iPads into China, too. Earlier this month, authorities discovered a group of people trying to smuggle iPhones across the river from Hong Kong to Shenzen on a 1,000-foot wire with a bag and pulley attached.