China Mobile is the world’s largest carrier with more than 760 million subscribers. After many long rounds of talks, Apple finalized an iPhone deal with China Mobile recently. Now, the company has shipped nearly 1.4 million iPhone 5S units to the carrier.
The shipment comes a few days ahead of the China Mobile’s iPhone launch, which is scheduled for Jan 17. The size of the shipment reveals that Apple has great hopes from the partnership it has forged with the carrier. Indeed by teaming up with such a huge carrier, Apple may see a significant boost in iPhone sales in China.
Preorders for Apple’s flagship handset have been available for some three weeks now. There’s a possibility that Apple decided to ship 1.4 million units after the customers expressed an overwhelming interest in the smartphone.
According to an inside source, “Shipping one million or more iPhones to a single carrier per month is substantial. But we have limited visibility beyond this month as Apple hasn’t informed Foxconn of the volume for the next shipment to China Mobile.”
It is not difficult to estimate that Apple’s iPhone sales are expected to grow exponentially, thanks to the deal with China Mobile. The carrier is also due to offer Apple’s cheaper handset, the iPhone 5C, starting this Friday. iPhone 5C may hold a certain appeal for the varied and fragmented Chinese smartphone market, given its significantly lower price tag.
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