iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will officially be available to pre-order in China from Friday, October 10, ahead of their launch a week later, Apple has confirmed. The news comes just hours after the Cupertino company’s new smartphones finally received approval from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Apple is yet to confirm its iPhone deal with China Mobile — the one we’ve been waiting for since the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c were unveiled back in September — but that hasn’t stopped some stores from putting their iPhone posters up early. According to the company’s new 4G teasers, the devices could finally go on sale between November 9 and November 11.
Further evidence to suggest that the new iPhones are almost ready for their long-awaited debut on China Mobile — the world’s largest carrier — has surfaced today after both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c gained regulatory approval for the carrier’s TD-LTE network.
A much-anticipated iPhone deal between Apple and China Mobile looks even closer this week after the popular smartphone gained regulatory approval to run on the carrier’s wireless network. The new partnership will see the iPhone supported by the world’s largest network for the first time, opening it up to more than 700 million subscribers.
Samsung smartphones outsold those from rivals Apple, Nokia, and Lenovo in China throughout 2012, allowing the Korean company to claim the biggest share of the Chinese smartphone market, according to the latest report from Strategy Analytics.
Nokia had claimed the top spot in 2011, but the Finnish firm has struggled to compete with Samsung’s Galaxy devices this time around, and couldn’t even make its way into the top five.
Android’s market share continues to grow throughout the world, but one country where Google’s platform is having its biggest impact is in China. It’s now the largest single Android market in the world, with one third of all Android devices sold there during 2012. The iPhone, on the other hand, is struggling there.
China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier with over 655 million subscribers, is in talks with Apple to bring the iPhone to its homegrown 3G (TD-SCDMA) network. The carrier’s chairman, Xi Guohua, confirmed the discussions during a shareholders meeting earlier this week.
China Mobile’s chairman, Wang Jianzhou, revealed in an interview today that Apple has given the carrier a “positive answer” to its request for an iPhone compatible with 4G LTE networks.
Of all the things we expect to see from Apple’s iPhone 5 in the coming months, it isn’t super-speedy LTE capabilities. However, China Mobile says that it has struck a deal with Apple to bring the next-genearation iPhone to its 4G TD-LTE network.
