China Mobile has a lot of subscribers, likely the most of any mobile carrier in the whole world, so why wouldn’t a company want to make sure their handset was available to all of those subscribers? Right now, China Mobile is talking with Apple to get the iPhone officially released on their network, but there are a couple of things keeping those talks from moving forward very quickly. According to reports, China Mobile already has over 10 million iPhones on their network, even though they do not offer the smartphone to subscribers. The carrier is very happy with this number and might be using that angle to let Apple know they are not needed right now.
China Mobile has made comments that they want a share of the revenue from apps that are sold in the Apple App Store if the iPhone is going to be on their network. This would mark the first time a company has made that request to Apple and they are likely not going to approve of that. But then again, if you think about all the subscribers that will be buying a shiny new iPhone, what is a couple of cents per app sold through the App Store, right? China Mobile knows that Apple wants into the Asian market and the company might be using the large subscriber base to squeeze even more money from Apple than ever before.
If Apple wants to make a real impact over in the Asian market, they should probably go along with whatever plan that China Mobile comes up with. Because for now, over 10 million subscribers have an iPhone and are happy with it, keeping the complaints about not having the iPhone on the China Mobile network to a real minimum.
Apple could take a step from other companies that are trying there hardest to get the iPhone on their network because those companies know what the iPhone does for them. If Apple is serious, giving app revenue to China Mobile is a cheap way to get your already big brand to million more people without any real work. At the same time, Apple might not want the iPhone at China Mobile just yet as the company is really still trying to work out the bugs of their TD-LTE network. In the meantime, Apple is also trying to get their phones compatible with the network.
