How many iPhones will Apple sell in China?

Lack of credit cards are not an issue. There are several countries that are credit card-averse and iTunes has always adapted with different payment models, gift cards among them.

This might give you an idea how things have changed in China.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/todays-china-communist-millionaires-kissing-contests-and-oh-yes-the-olympics/

Today’s China: Communist Millionaires, Kissing Contests, and Oh Yes, the Olympics
August 11, 2008, 2:41 PM
…
In the last couple of decades, China has produced 450,000 U.S. dollar millionaires and one-third of them have joined the Chinese Communist Party; 30 million Chinese tourists travel abroad. This paradox is indeed spellbinding.

450,000 millionaires from a population of 1.3 billion doesn't seem much compared to 6,700,000 in the US in 2008 or 1,510,000 millionaires in Japan.

Rick Aristottle Munariz of the Motley Fools is paid to mislead investors about Sirius XM Radio. He is part of a news media collusion lead by CNBC and their own Jim Cramer. Jim Cramer's street.com web site is also hip deep into the collusion. Jim Cramer and his writers, especially Scott Moritz are all part of the scandal and it leads upward to CNBC/GE executives and Goldman Sachs. Thank god their is now an investigation taking place with Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs was investigated and 10 firms, including Goldman Sachs were fined $1.4 Billion dollars in 2003. Now the full blown investigation by Boston's Chief Financial Regulator William Galvin will reveal the corruption of Goldman Sachs again and I can only hope that William Galvin will follow the money trail and check the bank accounts of Rick Aristottle Munariz of the Motley Fools along with Scott Moritz of the Street.com Just check these 2 writers banking accounts and the investigation will reveal that they are being paid off to write mis-leading stories about Sirius XM Radio. The money trail from these 2 writers will lead to >>> Motley Fools >>> Street.com >>> Jim Cramer >>> CNBC >>> GE / CNBC executives >>> NAB >>> Goldman Sachs.
It has all been a news media collusion along with the combination of Wall Street corruption by Goldman Sachs to destroy Sirius XM Radio inc. by naked short selling, flash trading, superfast computers, using secret software to manipulate the Sirius XM Stock price in decimal places the past few years since the Siri /XM merger was announce in Jan 2007. It was a pact agreed to by the news media and Goldman Sachs, which is why CNBC keeps reporting positive story after positive story about Goldman Sachs. All are into this collusion knee deep and this is why they will not report Goldman Sachs and their biggest scandal in the history of Wall Street.
Goldman Sachs got greedy. The scandal with Sirius XM Radio, worked so well with their secret software that was making them millions of dollars a day. Well, their Greed expanded into not just naked shorting & decimal place trading Sirius XM radio, but Goldman Sachs, next said , heck this secret software works so well, along with CNBC's cover up lets do it to our competition the banking industry. Goldman Sachs next used these tactics on the banking industry in 2008 – 2009. They have been protected by CNBC by paying CNBC millions of dollars a month in advertising or shall we say paid protection.
Goldman Sachs greed almost ruined this country when they began using naked shorting and their secret software to attack the banks. It was their Greed of making millions using this software attacking Sirius XM Radio and when they expanded their scandal to the banking industry, they were now making over $100 million dollars a day. This is a fact, as Goldman Sachs made over $100 million dollars a day in 46 of 64 trading days last Quarter 2009 ( April , May, June 2009 ).
CNBC is part of the scandal, taking in million a months from Goldman Sachs for their silence. Why wouldn't Goldman Sachs pay CNBC millions of month, that was nothing to them, since they are making over $100 million dollars a day. They helped CNBC try to ruin the competition ( Siri ) and now CNBC will help them ruin the other Banks. A true partnership by Goldman Sachs & CNBC.
The scandal lives on today, but thankfully the investigation by William Galvin will be expanded into the news media collusion of CNBC, Motley Fools & Street.com along with many other news media types.
Their Greed and goals have cost the average investors of the World hundreds of billions of dollars the past few years. In the end the truth is going to come out, but how does the people of the World hear the truth when the news media is part of the Scandal.
Well, a few years ago, CNBC & Goldman Sachs would have gotten away with it, but thank you http://www.Satwaves.com , http://www.twitter.com/stockshockmovie and the many social media outlets and bloggers out there. Thank you for helping bring the truth to the World. Each day we get closer and closer to the biggest scandal in the history of the United States. ( Written by Richard Keane – August 30th, 2009 )

Sounds to me like apple sold the phones already……for cash. It's the carrier that needs to sell them to the Chinese. Am I missing something??

ex ped: Good point. But that was a three-year deal. The question is, how many will it sell per year?

My guess is that Apple will launch a localised App Store for China. And that the cost of pay-for Apps will be added to the monthly subscription. Problem of low credit card penetration solved.

As for the possible number of iPhones to be sold in China — other publications mentioned that Unicom has ordered 5 million iPhones. Didn’t say how long they are going to take to sell those, though…

TO Bill, The ratio of the people I know in Asia is 20% locked and 80% unlocked and jailbroken. Why do you have to argue against it. Its for about 100 people. You are in the states and people pay any price. A lot of them buy in the States and bring it out of country too. Why do you think they sell unlocked phones in ebay??? The apps prices changes from free in the beginning to paid apps lately. Did you check it out? Well I am not going to tell you where some get it.

Apple probably wont do as well in China as they hope – they've waited too long. Just about everyone who wanted an iPhone and could afford it already have one through the grey market.

Locking it officially to Unicom guarentees that the grey market will continue to operate.

Apple are already doing quite well in China. Its just that the statistics are saying Hong Kong or Australia or Taiwan or anyother place where unlocked phones are available and a few other countries where they are not.

Education time for those that don't understand the Chinese market:

Millions of people CAN afford the iPhone. (You would not believe the number of BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and other high end cars here that cost significantly more than in the US, and are usually purchased with cash).

Chinese don't use Voice Mail. It is not a standard feature and people hate to use it – this makes visual voice mail a non-issue.

Almost every Chinese person WILL NOT use a credit card online for fear of getting ripped off (and there are relatively few credit cards in use here anyway) so a new model for making purchases through iTunes will need to be found to make iTunes successful. (Perhaps billing directly through the carrier, but even then most accounts are prepay.)

Thanks to the horrors of using Microsoft windoze, the Chinese are very fearful of downloading apps to the iPhones that are already in use here (unjustifiably so). Apple needs to focus on educating consumers about the iPhone's full capabilities, as well as to capitalize on a halo effect for the Mac.

Wifi on cellphones using the international standard is in fact allowed in China, but to have it on your phone, you also need to have the homegrown Chinese wifi standard and therefore two wifi radios on the phone. Something Apple apparently isn't ready to do in the first iteration as it requires re-engineering the iPhone and separate manufacturing line. Would expect them to do something like this later on. It has nothing to do with censorship.

The unlocked Hong Kong version iPhone that you can only buy online from Apple if shipped to a HK address is $811 USD. They are being quoted in Beijing stores (smuggled in) at over $1,000 USD and will also most certainly sell well.

Not more than 1 million. First of all China Unicom cannot afford high subsidies, as the ARPU is nowhere near western countries. iPhone is a big failure in India (less than 1,00,000 sold) and SE Asian nations because of the price. Asian counties don't like too much controls on their phones and many Apps doesn't mean anything for non English speakers. It will be a big failure in China (just like most Asian countries except Japan).

"Here we go agian/ We are told Chinese workers are better than us becasue they work for a buck an hour. Now we're told millions are going to buy a $600 phone. Along with cars that suck oil. Somewhere someone in our government is lying to us."

Well said, that man.

I am also dubious of the popular wisdom about china.

To believe what the western corporations say about china, and the politicians whom they sponsor, of course, you have to understand the perspective of the western corporation: profit for that particular corporation is the only thing that matters in the entire universe.

A good example here in Europe is the recent scandal surrounding BMW. There was a front page, full page picture of a new Chinese made SUV rolling off a ship, with the headline "The End of the German Car Industry"

The story was that BMW had sold crucial technology to the chinese in return for access to the chinese market. In effect, BMW had given the Chinese state technology that made the entire german society wealthy, in return for profits for itself. No, wait, for the HOPE of potential profits. For itself. And to hell with Germany.

And there's the rub. China is a collective society. It has hundreds of millions of non-party members who are what we would consider slaves, if their lives were visited upon us. they work where they are told, for what they are told, and if they object they are brutalized by the party.

But, that's fine! Corporations have no problem with that. They will take advantage of our laws and civil standards in the west, and they will trade the technology generated by these social standards for a cheap buck. No, for the HOPE of a cheap buck.

We all here a lot about how the common people of the west steal information from corporations.

When are we going to see the law prosecute corporations for stealing information from western universities, which are paid for by the public, and then selling that technology to totalitarian states for the hope of a few bucks?

There is something deeply screwed up about the way western corporations have zero liability for their use of technology that is paid for and developed by the public. They can do whatever they want with that information.

And what are they doing with it?

They're falling over themselves to sell it to totalitarian regimes that can only afford to but it because they have enslaved the vast majority of their population, who live like captive rats in a stinking cage.

I mean, what is the average chinese person going to do with an iPhone? Use it to check the concentration of coal dust in the air? Use the timer to count down the days left before China has stripped south east asia of non renewable resources, and faces complete social and economic breakdown?

Swap it for a few bowls of rice?

Every iPhone sold in China is also an iPod sold in China. How will these consumers use their new iPod's (phones)? Well, they will be adopting iTunes by the millions, and that means China begins buying music and other media from Apple. I don't have the numbers, but Apple's current iPod penetration in China is very low. (any volunteers on the numbers?) This is about to change the music / movie / Apps revenue picture.

It's understandable that nobody has a clue as to how many iPhones will be sold in China. They should wait until at least a few non-tech cellphone users in China get their hands on them before jumping to any conclusions.

Still, even if users like them, will they be able to afford them. Two million iPhone units being sold seems reasonable. Surely there have to be that many Chinese that can afford and like the iPhone as well as any other cellphone. I just hope the Chinese are not obsessed with physical keys like those CrackBerry lovers are.

It is not so much about whether you can or cannot get a jailbroken phone, it is also about advertising, easy access, guarantee and all that. Consumers will be more willing to pay more knowing there is an assurance, guarantee, etc.
Also, lots of already users will have access to upgrade the handset.
I think the china deal is huge news.
I only have 5 shares of apple. How much does it have to climb for me to retire on those ?

I think the iphone will sell alot in China. Although one wonders how popular it really should be seeing as how you cant even receive picture or video messages. What about hooking it up to a laptop to use as a modem? nope cant do that either! I'd take a blackberry any day over it. Do some research and actually look up AT&T's 3G network in the U.S., its awful meaning the Iphone is way slower than any other smartphone on the market when you are not in those tiny little specs of coverage AT&T calls 3G.

@KC the analyst are not forgetting anything genius. You have no clue what you are talking about. Apple has stated that it will not invest in old technolgy it doesn't make sense. The recent coversations between Apple and Verizon surely revolve around future technology. They are talking about LTE and in case you missed the news only two cities will be up and running by the end of this year. I wouldn't expect to see more than 25 at most 35 cities added in 2010. We are a long way from apple mass producing an LTE device and Verizon having the infrsrtucture to support it. Let me guess you are a verizon customer holding out, shame on you for knowing so little.

Here we go agian/ We are told Chinese workers are better than us becasue they work for a buck an hour. Now we're told millions are going to buy a $600 phone. Along with cars that suck oil. Somewhere someone in our government is lying to us.

While the China deal is big – the analysts are forgetting that Apple will release the iPhone to all major US carriers in 2010 when the AT&T exclusivity runs out. Triple what they sold through AT&T and you get an idea of the value for next year – I would expect a couple of new models and colors to precede the expansion into Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

Last I checked, there were tens of thousands of free apps in the App Store, each quite easily downloaded. The iPhone cellular radio is compatible ONLY with China Unicom's infrastructure (perhaps the smaller China Telecom eventually too), so what's the value of unlocking?

Jailbroken phones can't do visual voicemail, that seems crippling. And you must always worry about some future Apple update messing up your little jailbroken playpen.

So, anyone who's done even rudimentary research comes to a completely different conclusion than Alex.

HK does sell it but you need an HK address to buy one.

Maybe there are enterprising HK chinese who are selling into the grey market. Whichever way, Apple wins. It is foolish though for the Chinese government to have crippled the mobile phones. I don't think it is due to censorship. It probably has a lot to do with telecom earnings potential. In the end it is short sightedness.

Iphone is available in HK and not crippled. I think its for US$600 and $700. How much do you think Unicom will sell it as a lot of people who crave for it got it already. In fact its Unclocked for any network. Now why would you pay more for a crippled phone and subjected to one provider and cannot get free download apps easily.