Bloomberg News
Apple Inc.’s iPhone will go on sale in China in the fourth quarter, entering a market that has more wireless subscribers than the combined populations of the United States and the 16 nations that use the euro.
China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., the country’s second-biggest provider of mobile-phone service, will sell the iPhone 3G and the 3GS models, chairman Chang Xiaobing said yesterday. The three-year deal isn’t exclusive, Apple said. That means other carriers may offer the iPhone in China. Unicom will subsidize the iPhone handsets, Chang said, without saying how much they would sell for.
Apple will compete with Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and handsets powered by Google Inc.’s Android software in China, where shipments of smart phones may triple by 2013, according to research company IDC. The world’s third-biggest economy has continued to grow during the global recession. China has 695 million mobile-phone users…
