AfterDawn: News

China Unicom places gigantic iPhone 3GS order

Earlier this month, China Unicom and Apple finally came to an agreement to bring the popular smartphone, the iPhone, to China, albeit with Wi-Fi missing.

Today, showing they mean business, the Chinese carrier has ordered 5 million iPhone 3GS units, for about $1.46 billion USD. As a notable comparison, Apple sold just over 5 million iPhone units globally in the last quarter.



Says China Unicom GM of Customer Development Yu Zaonan, via BGR, the 3GS will sell for ¥2,400/$352 (16GB model) or ¥4,800/$704 (32GB model).

Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst from Sanford C Bernstein, expects Apple to make profit of ¥1100 for each unit sold.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 14 Aug 2009 20:31

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• 4 comments

• salsa36

  Now we are selling stuff to the chinese people, it is a great change! Go Apple!!

  14.8.2009 20:39 #1

• cart0181

  I don't expect they'll have much trouble selling these, since the company is owned by the government. They'll just make a law that says you must buy the phone. Done deal.

  14.8.2009 23:25 #2

• KillerBug

  Originally posted by cart0181: I don't expect they'll have much trouble selling these, since the company is owned by the government. They'll just make a law that says you must buy the phone. Done deal.Even the chinese are not that heavy handed. Their government run companies act a lot like the companies that run the governments in other countries like the USA.
  
  Still, they should not have any trouble unloading 5 million phones onto a population like China's.

  15.8.2009 03:47 #3

• Gnawnivek

  Well, got to hand it over to Apples, that's mass marketing!

  20.8.2009 12:12 #4