China Mobile has reported 655 million subscribers, which is the biggest number in the country, including 48 million 3G users (as of November 2011). Even though there are several iPhone customers with this network, it has not become an authorized Apple iPhone carrier. The reason why China Mobile is not able to close partnerships with Apple iPhone is because it doesn’t support 3G network feature. People are using their iPhones using the 2G network and the telecom company has given instructions in their websites to activate network facility on user’s iPhone. The best part is that Apple iPhones and network facilities are available from China Telecom and China Unicom but people are determined to choose China Mobile to use their iPhone. As a result, Apple is loosing lots of potential subscribers. Thinking about using an iPhone without a 3G facility is not possible and the network quality with 3G and 2G is entirely different. China Mobile, according to recent iphone statistics, it has over 10 million iPhone users. It is said that China Mobile can soon become an official carrier for Apple iPhone. Once China Mobile completes the LTE networking testing processes, Apple will start providing with iPhones with LTE to China Mobile. Comparing the number of subscribers with the three biggest networks, mobile statistics on China shows that China Unicom has only around 195 million that comes up to a third of China Mobile and China Telecom ranks after China Unicom with 62 million. The latest Apple iPhone 4S is available in the markets as the telecom companies have got network access permit issued to them. This will really affect the China Mobile users, as it is not compatible with the TC-SCDMA 3 G-network feature.
Source: zdnet
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