Apple struck a deal this week to sell its iPhone on China Mobile, the largest carrier in the world, with about 750 million mobile subscriptions.
That's also over 60% of China's mobile subscribers. News about the iPhone's launch on China Mobile coincides with word that the carrier will be the first in the nation to offer 4G LTE connectivity, which these iPhones are built to take advantage of.
This is a welcome development for Apple. The company's market share of the smartphone installed base in China has dipped since the fourth quarter of 2012 from 20% to 18% in the third quarter of 2013, according to Kantar Worldpanel.
Android, on the other hand, has seen its market share grow from 50% to 59% over the same period.
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Of course, the barrier for iPhones is that they are expensive.
At the Apple Store in China, an iPhone 5S costs 5288 Chinese Yuan, or $868. The iPhone 5C is at $733.
Still, Forrester Research projects that China Mobile's iPhone sales will be 17 million in the first year.
Already, some 42 million China Mobile subscribers use iPhones, purchased off-contract on the so-called grey market. These are phones bought overseas, brought into China from Hong Kong or elsewhere, or transferred to China Mobile from the smaller carriers, although China Mobile does not support them. That restricts these iPhone users to the less-effective 2G network services.
So offering a 4G-compatible iPhone would be an appealing upgrade for these customers, who have already shown the willingness to purchase an expensive device.
But overall, China Mobile doesn't yet look to be a massive market for iPhones. About 75% of China Mobile's subscribers are still on feature phones, perhaps because China Mobile is popular in rural areas where low-income subscribers can't afford modern smartphones and data plans.