Apple (AAPL) iPhone To Launch In China With 1,000 Stores

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 11, 8:41AM EDT · Published Oct 20, 6:26AM EDT

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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will launch the iPhone in China with China Unicom (NYSE:CHU) on October 30 with “1,000 points of sale,” according to a transcription of the company’s earnings call done by Seeking Alpha.

Apple commented on China Unicom’s plans. “They’ve announced the plans and prices that they’ll have for the device and for the service. There’s a very wide range here on the post-paid side from $18 a month all the way up to $85, $100 a month. At the higher price point an individual is able to actually get the device for free and it goes up as you go down the ARPU, as it would in most countries.”

Apple sold 7.4 million iPhone worldwide in the September quarter and both the holidays and sales in China should push that number up sharply. Analysts expect improved Q4 iPhone sales, but just as they were surprised by the strength of handset sales last quarter, it seems that they may be in for another one in the current period.

Apple’s progress with the iPhone in China and elsewhere makes the company’s forecast for the last quarter of the year laughable. For the December quarter, the company expects revenue of $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion, with profits of $1.70-$1.78 a share. Those numbers are improbable because there is no indication of any slowing in the growth of Macs or iPhones.

Apple will knock the cover off the ball again in the final quarter of the calendar year, and China could play a significant part in that.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.