In a press release this morning, Apple announced that it has sold over two million iPhone 5s in China in just three days. The iPhone launched on December 14 and by the end of the day on Sunday Apple had its tally. Apple’s grand plan is to make the iPhone 5 available in more than 100 countries by the end of December. The numbers are somewhat surprising considering the lack of lineups in the country on release day, proof positive that Apple’s reservation system is successfully handling the demand in China.
CEO, Tim Cook, was very pleased with these opening weekend numbers: “Customer response to iPhone 5 has been incredible, setting a new record with the best first weekend sales ever in China. China is a very important market for us and customers there cannot wait to get their hands on Apple products.”
China is an important market for Apple. Apple already has deals with two major Chinese mobile networks: China Unicom and China Telecom. Making a deal with China Mobile would open the iPhone 5 to the largest mobile operator in China. Right now, China Mobile has more than 700 million subscribers.
The difficulty in making a deal with China Mobile is the technology that the mobile operator uses. Its LTE network is built on TD-SCDMA technologies, and TD-SCDMA is only used by China Mobile. As of now the iPhone 5 doesn’t support this version of LTE.
Image Credit: Telegraph
