Skip to content

Categories:

iPhone Released in China, Lacks Wi-Fi

iphone3gschina.pngThe iPhone 3GS was released today in China, where Apple is partnering with mobile carrier China Unicom, but without Wi-Fi support, reports the Associated Press. The lack of Wi-Fi support is due to a ban on Wi-Fi by the Chinese government in an attempt to promote a competing standard. The ban has since been lifted and Wi-Fi support is expected to be included in the next batch of iPhones, which should be available before the end of the year.

It is likely that this will lead to poor initial sells of the phone, as many consumers will put off buying it until the Wi-Fi enabled models are available. China Unicom must also compete with the much larger China Mobile, which has 508 million accounts compared to China Unicom’s 143 million accounts and has announced that it will be releasing its own smartphone next year. Another obstacle for China Unicom is the prevalence of imported iPhones, which include Wi-Fi support and can be used on China Mobile’s 3G network. China Unicom offers the iPhone for 4,999 yuan ($730) to 6,999 yuan ($1,025), depending on the model, while an unlocked iPhone goes for 5,700 yuan ($835).

Posted in Tech.

Tagged with , , .


One Response

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. GafIrobPreree says

    Lue koko blogi, melko hyva



Some HTML is OK

or, reply to this post via trackback.