

China Mobile and Apple Bring iPhone to China Mobile’s 4G & 3G Networks - sc90
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/12/22China-Mobile-Apple-Bring-iPhone-to-China-Mobiles-4G-3G-Networks-on-January-17-2014.html

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aaronbrethorst
Here's the most important sentence:

    
    
        China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile
        services provider by network scale and
        subscriber base, serving over 760 million
        customers.
    

The NYT has some more context, too:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/technology/apple-and-
china...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/technology/apple-and-china-mobile-
sign-iphone-deal.html)

~~~
est
... and like 80% of its subscribers are GPRS or EDGE users.

~~~
capkutay
If that's true, the remaining 20% is about as large as half the US population.

~~~
est
For the remaining 3G users, 80% are likely TD-SCDMA disguised as land line
telephones.

It's a Chinese thing, where you pay for a "fixed line" telephone set, but no
need for actual wires to your home. Communication were done via wireless TD-
SCDMA.

~~~
ttflee
> via wireless TD-SCDMA.

Or EDGE.

Actually there are two or three such phones in my office.

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javindo
Slightly off topic but this line made me chuckle:

    
    
        iPhone 5s, the most forward-thinking smartphone in the world 
        and iPhone 5c, the most colorful iPhone yet
    

I guess that's a PR problem you have to deal with when you release the best of
your efforts alongside a lower cost version!

~~~
swalsh
When I bought a new car a while ago, my mom asked what color it was (black)
and my dad asked what kind it was (g37). Some people don't really care how
fast it is if its pretty.

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rebel
I wonder if this was timed precisely so they could meet demand in the rest of
the world for Christmas. With that rush obviously ending on Christmas day,
they start taking orders for China Mobile on that day.

~~~
yabatopia
Or maybe it has more to do with Chinese New Year then with Western holidays.

~~~
rebel
Quite possible. I am not well versed in Chinese holidays, but from an American
perspective the timing implies they wanted to meet Christmas demand before
adding in such a large market. Thanks for your perspective though, I guess I
have a little learning to do.

~~~
newhouseb
Christmas has been adopted in China as one of the country's largest retail
holidays (obviously with no religious affiliation), so I'm sure demand for the
iPhone is very strong during Christmas in China as well. It seems likely that
the timing is designed around CNY but w/ the new Chinese consumerism, demand
is likely very strong throughout the year.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is clearly timed for CNY, like the iPhone 4 release was. January is
China's largest retail season as there is a lot of gift buying for the early
February golden week when everyone goes back to see their family.

But go to the Apple store any night and its extremely crowded. Its like IKEA
but a lot more packed since the space is much smaller.

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marme
One tiny problem with this is that there is no 4G service is currently
available in china. China mobile also does not run a standard 3G network they
run a proprietary 3G network standard that only chinese phones made for their
network can run on, it looks like the 4G is going to be proprietary also,
4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA. I dont know how they are going to be ready to have
3G and 4G ready for the iphone by the end of this year. So this means those
iphones to be sold by china mobile will be using the proprietary 3g and 4g
standard that cant be used outside of china. Many customers who travel will be
very upset when they realize their iphone data network wont work outside of
china

~~~
mindjiver
Both TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE are standardised by 3GPP, just like WCDMA and FD-LTE.
So they are not proprietary standards.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
TD-SCDMA are incredibly unstable technologies, or China mobile has implemented
them poorly; I'll take 3G on China Unicom anyday over CMCC's 3G.

The problem with these home grown "standards" is that no one else uses them
and they never get the international support they need to become stable.

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rahimnathwani
Mobile phone numbers cannot be ported from one mobile network in China to
another.* Therefore, people are extremely reluctant to switch networks.
Otherwise Apple fans would have all switched to China Unicom long ago.

Several of my friends use iPhones on China Mobile. They don't get 3G data
speeds because China Mobile uses a different 3G standard, supported only by
specific handsets. There are lots of Android-based choices.

* except for some very limited trials, none of which have been in tier 1 cities AFAIK

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usaar333
Related question: In China, how annoying is it to switch numbers?

In America, nearly everything I have is linked to my email address, not phone
number. I recently had to change phone numbers and it was a quick task -- just
emailed all my friends & family I had a new number and that was that.
(changing emails, on the other-hand, would be extremely time-consuming)

Are things not so email-linked in China? (I've noticed that a lot of services
there, (even free wifi!!) are connected to mobile numbers, not email address).

~~~
rahimnathwani
It's really annoying, for the reasons you mentioned.

Apart from banks and online shopping sites, many offline loyalty programs
(restaurants, massage, beauty ...) use mobile number as a unique identifier.

Having said that, I've noticed over the last few months that people I meet are
more likely to request/offer a WeChat (威信) username than a phone number.
Businesses are embracing WeChat for marketing-related activity, but I don't
yet see any indication that WeChat will become the primary mechanism for
transactional notices.

~~~
usaar333
Thanks.

BTW, the Hanzi are 微信 :)

~~~
rahimnathwani
Oops. Too late to edit now :(

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yalogin
Wonder what the structure of that deal is? China mobile held out this long so
they wanted something or we're not willing to give up what Apple asked for.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Or vice versa. Unicom was killing China Mobile at the high end since it had
iPhone and China mobile didn't. Even China Telecom had iPhone for crying out
loud!

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nthitz
Could this announcement have had any influence on the allegations about
evasi0n's decision to "rush their jailbreak" or however you read that drama
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6951647](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6951647)

~~~
objclxt
Seems unlikely, given it's been brewing for months (years?). China Mobile had
already started selling iPhones a few weeks ago, with in store displays. Far
more likely that someone was about to leak the jailbreak without the stuff
they were (allegedly) paid to add, which would completely devalue/derail their
own deal.

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iribe
...and any apps that government doesn't like will be cens^h^h^h^hbanned.

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joosters
Could you name some apps in the US apple store that the US government would
care about banning?

~~~
jrockway
"The New York Times"

