October 30, 2009: Two years after launching in the United States, the iPhone finally goes on sale in China, giving Apple a chance to reach the world’s largest market.
Regulatory hurdles previously blocked Apple’s access to China, including restrictions on Wi-Fi functionality. With those problems solved, Apple offers the iPhone 3GS to the country’s 1.3 billion people, most of whom do not yet own smartphones.
First iPhone goes on sale in China
iPhones had been unofficially available in China since early in the product’s life. By 2008, a year after the original iPhone launch, BusinessWeek reported that 800,000 to 1 million iPhones had gone AWOL after legitimate purchases. Later rumors claimed that 400,000 of those iPhones, sold on the gray market and unlocked via hacks, operated on local networks in China.
However, October 2009 marked the first time Apple’s smartphone became easily available on a local Chinese carrier (Unicom). The device cost up to 6,999 yuan ($1,025) for the top-end 32GB iPhone 3GS. That price came in fractionally higher than a typical black-market iPhone at the time.
The first legal iPhones in China labored under another disadvantage as well: a lack of Wi-Fi functionality. Beijing, wanting to promote a rival Chinese system, banned the wireless technology. The country relaxed its stance in May 2009, after Apple began manufacturing custom iPhones — without Wi-Fi — for the Chinese market. (Later Chinese iPhone models included Wi-Fi.)
As a result, iPhone sales in China didn’t become a massive game-changer for Apple until a few years later, when Cupertino finally closed a deal with China Mobile. That brought the iPhone to the world’s largest wireless carrier.
Apple and the Chinese market
Today, despite reservations from some, Apple remains incredibly keen to embrace the Chinese market, as illustrated by the astonishingly rapid expansion of Apple retail stores in the country.
China is now second only to the United States when it comes to App Store revenue, according to Statista. Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company designs new products specifically with the Chinese audience in mind. And
Still, Apple faces new challenges in China. The trade war that erupted during President Donald Trump’s second term in office brought tariffs on a wide range of countries, including China, where Apple traditionally manufactured most iPhones. Those tariffs continue to shift as the two countries threaten each other and hammer out deals. Just today, Trump announced a new deal that cuts tariffs on iPhone’s built in China to 10%.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to diversify its manufacturing base outside of China, with more manufacturing taking place in India, Vietnam and other countries. As a result, the majority of iPhone 17 models headed to U.S. customers were built in India for the first time.
Other tensions remain as well. The Chinese government remains hostile to smartphones from companies headquartered outside of the country and it’s investigating Foxconn, the Taiwanese corporation that assembles many Apple products.
Despite these problems, Apple continues to court Chinese business for good reason. China remains a gigantic market (as well as a manufacturing powerhouse). And Apple likely thinks it can function as a “force for good” in the authoritarian country.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
