300,000 units? Largest market in the world, Apple sells 300,000 units. Nice job Apple.

300,000 units? Largest market in the world, Apple sells 300,000 units. Nice job Apple.

I don’t know if you’re ignorant or perverse. If you’ve followed the news, you should know that something like 3.5 million people in China had iPhones before it was officially on sale there. They were bought in Singapore and other places, shipped to China, and sold openly on the grey market. There have been many articles about this, which is apparently still going on. The grey market iPhones have wifi enabled, unlike the “official” iPhones. Apple only cares that the sale was made, not where it was made. Grey market iPhones are even “better,” as Apple doesn’t have to provide warranty support.

It’s not Apple’s fault, it’s China Unicom and the China government’s fault that not many iPhones are being sold through China Unicom.  The whole trick with being a carrier is lowering the initial cost of the smartphone and then attempt to make it back with monthly data fees.  China Unicom is going to need to adjust its strategy.  Softbank in Japan was able to do some upfront cost adjustments and they were able to increase iPhone sales over a period of time. 

I thought I’d heard the China government had changed its mind allowing non-WAPI WiFi.  If it has, then I suppose the next batch of Chinese iPhones will have standard WiFi chips in them.  It’s really terrible that the Chinese have to settle for crippled iPhones through China Unicom.  It doesn’t make much sense at all for consumers to purchase those particular iPhones and yet paying a higher cost.