China Unicom has said it will begin selling the popular Apple iPhone 4 in China beginning this coming Saturday, the 25th.
The carrier says it has already taken 50,000 pre-orders for the smartphone.
In separate news, the carrier began selling the iPad tablet on Friday, with Apple Stores being bombarded by consumers.
Apple’s store in Beijing had fans waiting since Tuesday to be the first to get the device, and a similar line is expected for the iPhone.
Says David Han, one of the first to get a tablet: “I came straight here from work on Tuesday to be first in line. I could have bought an imported gray-market or pirated iPad, but I waited to buy the iPad directly from an Apple Retail Store.”
So far, Apple is only selling the Wi-Fi model of the iPad with the Wi-Fi/3G model listed as “coming soon.”
Result for: beijing
Yesterday we reported that China Unicom had made a large purchase of 5 million iPhone 3GS units, but today the carrier is denying the reports, calling the rumors “definitely not true.”
China Unicom’s spokesman Yi Difei added that “talks between us and Apple have been going on for some time”, but no deal has been made as of yet, as some hurdles have not been cleared.
Apple spokeswoman in beijing Tiffany Yang also added that there was still no official word on the iPhone’s launch in China.
We will keep you updated.
Result for: beijing
Warner Bros. is attempting to curb piracy of its products in China by offering a legal alternative to the country’s 1.3 billion population. In co-operation with a Beijing-based media company called Voole, Warner Bros. will offer new titles from its vaults as digital rentals for a significantly reduced price compared to the street pirates. Bootlegged disks typically go for (GBP)£1 or less on the street.
Warner’s plan is to offer the digital alternative rental service at a price of around 30p - 70p per download (based on the movie in question, one could only assume). The level of pirate products sold in China is in the area of 90%, but Warner and other concerned content companies cannot ignore the fact that China has one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
Of course, the downloads will be protected by DRM, and the users will be able to download them and watch them from their computer or stream them over the Internet. Warner recently announced a similar plan to curb growing piracy in Korea.
