iPhone in China | 苹果中国

No more time for rumors, it is now official. China Unicom and Apple has officially announced the settlement of a multiyear agreement to sell the iPhone in China today. As our sources have confirmed with us earlier, they are gearing up for a fourth quarter launch this year.

Over the past few months, China Unicom kiosks have been popping up in Carrefour (the French version of Walmart) and Best Buy locations all over the Mainland after China Unicom has made agreements with both companies to help promote and sell their 3G service. The wide availability of the iPhone at these higher end locations should help obtain the right target market as well as defend against China Mobile’s Android based OPhone (the supposed China iPhone killer) also making it’s debut around the same time. The 8GB version of the iPhone (around 2,400 RMB) and 16GB version (around 4800 RMB) will also be sold at official China Unicom locations.

China Unicom press release:

UPDATE: iPhone in China is officially listed on Apple.com.cn

We reported earlier that one of the reasons for investing in China Unicom (CHU) may not be a good idea because of their official stores being sparsely located throughout major cities. Today we learn that Best Buy in China has been preparing for the iPhone release as early as May when Apple received a 5 year license from the national radio frequency spectrum monitoring and testing center. Along with the iPhone, Best Buy will also sell other 3G Unicom products such as data cards and service plans. The Apple Store in Beijing brings the total to three official retailers for the Chinese iPhone.

There will also be 2 versions of the iPhone set for release in China which sport different model numbers then their parallel devices in the rest of the world. The Chinese version of the iPhone 3GS Model is A1325, and the Chinese version of the iPhone 3G model is A1324. The iPhone 3GS elsewhere such as the US and Hong Kong is the A1303, the second generation iPhone 3G and first-generation iPhone only supports the 2G mobile phone models are the A1241 and A1203 respectively. According to the screenshot below from the National Radio Authority web site, the Phone will be on the GSM standard.

Apple COO, Tim Cook in an interview with iPhoneAsia Editor Dan Butterfield also said Unicom reached a sale agreement with Apple and will see the formal launch of China’s first Apple iPhone mobile phone the autumn of 2009 .