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China Unicom Wants Their iPhone Wi-Fi

J.R. Bookwalter — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:16:42 -0600

Chinese government regulations forced Apple to remove Wi-Fi from the iPhone before it could be sold through China Unicom -- but if the carrier has their way, that limitation may soon be lifted.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that China Unicom has been working to get a Wi-Fi-equipped iPhone into customers’ hands this year. Speaking to reporters outside of the annual session of National People’s Congress, China Unicom chief executive Chang Xiaobing confirmed that a change in Chinese regulations last year has paved the way for a Wi-Fi iPhone to be sold there, but didn’t indicate how soon it might happen.

China Unicom is one of three Chinese state-owned cell phone carriers, and the one who nabbed the lucrative exclusive on the iPhone. However, when the device launched there last October, sales were lukewarm -- mostly blamed on the device’s high price and lack of Wi-Fi, although the fact that plenty of grey market handsets had already infiltrated the country certainly didn’t help, either.

Apple and China Unicom currently charge between $730 and $1,020 for the iPhone (not including discounts on service), which is higher than the grey market devices coming into the county by way of Hong Kong and other places. Unicom will lower iPhone prices “if conditions permit,” according to Chang.

Chinese regulations require that handset makers who want to include wireless Internet use their own “homegrown standard” called WAPI. That would have forced Apple to remove the Wi-Fi standard used everywhere else, so the decision was made to ship the device without any kind of wireless Internet, only 3G.

China Unicom’s Chang notes that if the new iPhone model is introduced, the company will “consider compensating current users who lack Wi-Fi, perhaps by allowing greater use” of Unicom’s 3G network.

Unicom currently has 145.7 million EDGE users and 3.6 million 3G users as of the end of January. Competitor China Mobile has 3.9 million 3G users out of a total of 527.4 million mobile users, which makes it the largest in the world.

Google Postpones Launch of Android in China

Matthew Tilmann — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:44:00 -0600

Talks between Google and China continue to remain tense, and because of that, Google decided to postpone the launch of two Android phones, 9 to 5 Mac reported via the BBC. The focus of discussions between the two has been over Internet censorship and hacker attacks on human rights activists' email accounts.

The launch of the phones, intended to compete with the iPhone, was originally scheduled to launch on Wednesday. The announcement was made as the Chinese government stated that Google and other foreign firms have to obey the country's laws and traditions.

"The launch we have been working on with China Unicom has been postponed," a Google spokesperson had said.

The news also comes as foreign journalists who are based in Beijing claim that they have been the latest victims of China-based cyber attacks.

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Google Taking Possible New Approach To China Operations

Matthew Tilmann — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:24:38 -0600

Google said on Tuesday that their company and about twenty others were victims of a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" that originated in China in mid-December. The attack was apparently designed to gain access to the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

"As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying these companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities," said David Drummond, Senior Vice President/Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer.

He continues, "…as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers."

Drummond then went on to explain the company's possible future stance on China. "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate and unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

This will certainly be a development to keep an eye on in the coming days. You can view Drummond's entire statement here.

iPhone Strains (And Gains) Overseas, Too

J.R. Bookwalter — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:57:05 -0600

If you think it’s just AT&T’s network in the United States that’s being overwhelmed by the iPhone, think again.

According to AppleInsider (from a Reuters report), U.K.-based carrier O2 has also been battling data network congestion on the other side of the pond for the last six months or so. O2 has seen an 18-fold increase in traffic from data-gobbling smartphones -- so much so that O2’s London network reportedly crashed under the pressure on numerous occasions this past summer. During those outages, many customers were unable to make calls or get a data connection at certain times.

“Where we haven’t met our own high standards then there’s no question, we apologize to customers for that fact,” Chief Executive Ronan Dunne confessed to the Financial Times. “But it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse.”

It would seem that O2 has been working hard to correct the situation, including a $48 million investment in its network in & around London which included 200 extra mobile towers. Most of the network strain appears to have eased by year’s end with the upgrade.

Hopping across the Pacific pond, it appears the iPhone is finally gaining some traction in China after the widely reported lackluster launch, lack of Wi-Fi and competition with the grey market.

China Unicom, Apple’s exclusive carrier in that country, is now believed to have sold its 300,000th device earlier this week. Less than three weeks ago, the carrier had hit 100,000 units after 40 days, so the new report could be more good news for Apple to cap off 2009.

Hey, China: Let People Have iTunes!

J.R. Bookwalter — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:20:28 -0600

China is obstructing trade by forcing foreign suppliers to deliver media through state-owned companies, according to The World Trade Organization. That includes a native iTunes. So what gives?

The Chinese government commonly filters media for objectionable content before it’s released to the public, including movies, music and books. Despite the popularity of Apple’s iPod and iPhone there, China does not have its own iTunes Music Store -- and U.S. media companies blame this on the government’s restrictive policies for selling content directly to the public, according to AppleInsider.

Last year, the Chinese government took a volley of criticism after temporarily blocking access to the U.S. iTunes Store in reaction to the release of the album “Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace.” A few days later, the iTunes Store returned, but sans the “offending” pro-Tibet album.

China has a long history of blocking access to websites it feels are objectionable, and took criticism for the practice during the Beijing Olympics when foreigners found themselves unable to access the U.S. iTunes Store, among others. Blocked sites generally include anything related to Tibet or the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

The Chinese government expressed “regret” over the WTO’s ruling Tuesday. Even after the Olympics wrapped up, U.S. media companies have kept the pressure on China, including support from major music labels, publishers and movie studios.

The latest WTO ruling may now get the U.S. government itself involved, in order to ask for commercial sanctions against Chinese goods if China doesn’t rectify the situation in the next year.

While the lack of an official iTunes Music Store in China is a bummer for the Communist nation of 1 billion people, don’t cry for Apple: iTunes is currently the largest overall seller of music in the U.S., with a 25% share of the total market.

Microsoft Rips Off Chinese Microblogging Service?

J.R. Bookwalter — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:11:35 -0600

Asia’s number one microblogging service is crying foul at Microsoft, who has apparently helped themselves to the look & feel of their service.

That’s the word from the official Plurk blog. Plurk is the numero uno microblogging service in all of Asia, and based on the screenshots below from their blog this week, it appears that Microsoft China has some explaining to do.

Apparently, Microsoft China launched their own official service in November of this year. Called MSN Juku/Hompy/Mclub (?!), the design and user interface of the service is a near exact copy of Plurk’s, right down to the left-right timeline scrolling navigation system they use. Plurk is also claiming that nearly 80% of the code used by Microsoft China is straight from their service as well.

Of course, piracy and China go together like peanut butter & jelly. Movies, television shows, music and software from America are widely pirated in China, where officially licensed product can be a hard sell. If Plurk’s claims are true, this would be one of the rare occasions where an American company turned the tables on the Chinese!

As the Plurk blog points out, it’s rather an ironic situation: “All the more ironic considering Microsoft has often been leading the charge on fighting for stronger IP (intellectual property) laws and combating software piracy in China.”

It goes without saying that Plurk was never approached by Microsoft China, nor did they collaborate with them. Plurk is a young, upstart company with millions of loyal users, and their blog is making a very vocal plea to those users to help put a stop to Microsoft’s dastardly folly. This will be one to watch!

So Much For Those Rumors About Poor Chinese iPhone Sales...

J.R. Bookwalter — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:32:47 -0600

Word on the street is that Apple’s iPhone is something of a failure in China after moving a mere 5,000 devices at the official launch in late October. But the “little phone that could” has now topped 100,000 units in the weeks since that launch.

Even with sluggish device sales in China, the iPhone could hardly be called a failure at any rate, but the Dow Jones Newswire is now reporting that the device has continued selling steadily since its October launch and has now racked up 100,000 official units sold.

Of course, with every piece of good news comes a wet blanket to dampen it. According to AppleInsider, analysts point out that official carrier China Unicom already has 144 million wireless subscribers, so 100,000 iPhone users will hardly add much to their lofty bottom line. The original iPhone debuted in 2007 and moved 270,000 units in the U.S. alone, compared to the June, 2009 debut of the iPhone 3GS which racked up more than one million devices at launch.

China Unicom seems satisfied with the numbers, especially considering they are using the iPhone to market its brand-new 3G network which launched at the same time. The company is hoping to add more than 1 million 3G users each month and already met that goal for October.

Among the many problems that plagued the iPhone’s launch in China are the proliferation of gray market, unlocked iPhones from abroad, which can be purchased cheaper than the official devices. Given that China Unicom is the country’s sole 3G network, those gray market users have no compelling reason to pay more for an officially sanctioned handset, especially when the official device lacks any Wi-Fi capability.

Apple sold 60,000 iPhones at the launch in nearby South Korea, which already represents 15% of the total market.

You Can Count The iPhone Sales In China On One Hand?

J.R. Bookwalter — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:39:55 -0600

Hammering home the challenge that Apple faces in China with the iPhone is a report that only five units have been sold during the first two weeks on the official carrier’s online store.

China Unicom opened an official iPhone store in mid-November on Taobao.com, the largest Chinese e-commerce website, according to PC World. Similar to eBay, the official store has thus far sold only two 8 GB iPhones and three 16 GB iPhones, if figures on the site are to be believed.

Taobao is China’s top online retail site, where many users go to buy items like mobile phones and laptops. China Unicom is also selling the iPhone through its own website, but no sales figures are listed there.

The official iPhones from China Unicom have to compete with unlocked units brought in from overseas, which many users purchased well before the official deal with Apple was in place. Apple was forced to remove Wi-Fi from the devices before China Unicom could sell them officially to comply with local regulations (which have since been removed, ironically). The final hurdle for the iPhone in China is the steep price: 6,999 yuan ($1,024 US) for a 32 GB iPhone 3GS with no service, compared to $800 in nearby Hong Kong.

Previous reports pegged the early China Unicom sales at around 5,000 units in the first few days after launch, which looks particularly bad when compared to last week’s South Korean launch where carrier KT racked up 60,000 online orders for the device.

Last month, a China Unicom executive was openly optimistic about the iPhone’s chances in his country, predicting 10% of China’s 3G users to buy the handset, according to Chinese state media.