Apple iPhone 4 And iPad About To Hit China

There are already grey market versions of the iPhone 4 and iPad on sale in China, many of them brought in through Hong Kong. And, there are a number of cheap knock-offs for sale as well.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has witnessed this which may be one of several reasons that it will start to offer the iPad and iPhone in the world’s largest market starting next month, according to local media. China Unicom (NYSE: CHU), Apple’s current wireless carrier partner, will distribute the new products. The China Unicom arrangement will be exclusive, at least for now. Rival China Mobile (NYSE: CHL) has a much larger share of the wireless market in the People’s Republic which means that Apple may move to the larger network soon.Apple has several motives to move into China quickly. The first is that it is the world’s largest market for wireless devices with over 700 million users. It is also the world’s largest internet market with 400 million people online. Both the wireless population and internet pool are growing. Apple’s products are currently sold in nations where the mobile growth is relatively stagnant including the US, EU, and Japan. Apple can fight for market share in these regions, but it will not be selling into a rapidly growing region.

Apple is also losing ground to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-based phones and this is as true in China as anywhere else. Apple may have the same piracy problem in the world’s most populous nations that every Western technology company does, but it cannot afford to be flanked by its major competitors. Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) already has an aggressive program to sell its Blackberry on the mainland.

Apple has had extraordinary success selling the iPhone and iPad in most of the developed world. It could certainly be argued that it has been slow to move into developing regions. iPhone and iPad sales are the company’s future, and the future of mobile is more in China than anywhere else.

Douglas A. McIntyre