Here's Why Apple Is Putting So Much Emphasis On Selling iPhones In China

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Smartphones Are 45% Ff Subscriptions In China

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Apple's iPhone went on sale for the first time on the China Mobile network last Friday and thus far the reaction appears to be mixed. There have been over one million pre-orders of the iPhone on the network, but in-store sales seemed tepid on Friday, and there are concerns over a coming subsidy war.

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At BI Intelligence, we recently surveyed some of the best data available on China's mobile computing market and collected it in an in-depth PowerPoint presentation. The full 50-slide version, as well as our ongoing China coverage, is available to subscribers.

Here are some of our key findings on the smartphone market in China, the country that will drive the next big growth story in smartphone shipments:

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  • The mobile market in China is already nearly saturated, but most people are still not on smartphone subscriptions.
  • Uptake of smartphones are pushing people on to 3G networks.
  • China Mobile has a huge lead in overall subscriptions in the country.
  • But smartphones make up a much smaller share of China Mobile subscriptions than at China Unicom and China Telecom.
  • The 3G market is in a very tight race between these three carriers.
  • There are already more mobile Internet users in China than PC Internet users, and the race in China is to bring people on to smartphones. Mobile's lead will only widen.
  • It's already happening: The number of smartphone shipments in China doubled in the last year.

To access the full PowerPoint presentation on China's Mobile Ecosystem, you can sign up for a free two-week trial to BI Intelligence.

BI Intelligence is a research and analysis service focused on mobile computing and the Internet.

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China 3G Subscribers

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