Shanghai Unicom HQ
If you search for on Twitter, you’ll find hundreds of tweets reinforcing the falsehood that Apple () has sold only 5 iPhones in China. This pathetic little number comes from articles reporting the first 2 weeks of iPhone sales on the new China Unicom iPhone portal on Taobao.com. Yes, only a handful the “official” iPhones have sold on the new site (Note: Taobao.com currently sells thousands of grey-market iPhones > see here) however, Taobao.com is hardly the only place to buy the official iPhone. China Unicom sells iPhones through their Wo Stores and mall-store affliates. You can also buy an official unlocked (no contract) iPhone through Carrerfour, Best Buy and the . There are also plans to expand distribution through Foxconn retail outlets.
Back to the central question … how many total iPhones have been sold in China? The answer depends very much on how you ask this question. If you ask how many total iPhones since the original launch in 2007? The answer is somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5+ million iPhones have made there way into the hands of Chinese buyers.
iPhone on sale at Carrefour Beijing
If you ask how many of the official “built for China Unicom” iPhones have been sold since the October 30, 2009 launch? The answer is somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000. Update – Dec. 10, 2009: we now know that number has exceeded 100,000
If you ask how many total official iPhones were sold by Apple directly to China Unicom? Pure guesswork, but that number could be as high as 250,000. A quarter million iPhones might be the first installment of iPhones that are part of a larger China Unicom pre-purchase commitment.
A bit more background …
On August 11, 2009 China Business News reported that China Unicom agreed to pre-purchase 5 million iPhones from Apple for 10 billion yuan renminbi, a cool USD $1.46 billion. Immediately after the CBN report, China Unicom spokesman, Yi Difei publicly denied the iPhone pre-purchase. A few weeks later China Unicom CEO Chang Xiaobing offered more of a qualified response: “Not exactly as reported” (a loose translation).
Despite these denials and qualifiers, Zhou Fang, the CBN reporter who broke the story, stands by his article and states that he made audio recordings of the interviews with the Guangdong Unicom executives (Zhou Youmeng and Yu Zaonan) who spilled the beans. Adding further legitimacy to the original CBN report is an 8/14/09 post on Interfax TMT sourcing another China Unicom insider who validates the 5 million pre-order claim.
iPhone on sale at Mobile City Hong Kong
In my view, a pre-order commitment from China Unicom is almost a certainty. Apple would not build an iPhone specially configured for China Unicom (50 for China apps + WoPortal + WiFi chip removed) without a major pre-sale. The question is how many iPhones were pre-ordered and over what time? My guess is that the original rumor holds up … 5 million iPhones with a payment/delivery schedule staged-in over a 3-year timeline.
While the official (non-grey-market) iPhone sales at retail are likely somewhere between 10,000 to 50,000 launch-to-date, it’s a safe bet that Apple has booked a much higher number for () 
Q1 2010 earnings due to the probable pre-purchase by China Unicom (paid for and delivered).
Are there any catalysts that might kick-start retail iPhone sales in China? Yes. Here are a few items on my “jump start sales” wish-list:
DBS Visa - iPhone payment plan $0 deposit
- Future iPhone models that include WAPI/WiFi*
- New plans that reduce the iPhone price and/or deposit amount.
- New bank card deals ala the DBS plan offered by Planet 3 in Hong Kong. The deposit is waived for those who qualify for the DBS Visa, and the monthly payments for iPhone are quite modest.
- New iPhone/iTunes e-payment systems for those who don’t have credit cards. Apple might be moving in this direction via the new partnership with Alipay.
- An iPhone deal with China Mobile featuring a low-priced 2G (EDGE) iPhone.
- A bit further down the path (2011/12) … a TD-LTE 4G iPhone for China Mobile.
*There have been numerous reports that a WAPI/WiFi iPhone is under consideration. China Unicom executive management, including CEO Chang Xiaobing, are on board with this notion. When (or if) might this happen? Unknown. Best guess would be Spring/Summer 2010.
