A rumour has surfaced that Apple and China Unicom have struck a deal that would see the iPhone launch in China as early as August.
With Apple adding support for Chinese languages in its iPhone 2.0 firmware, such a move is widely anticipated. Apple has also held negotiations with both China Mobile and China Unicom in the past but agreements could not be reached at the time. Could Apple’s decision to abandon revenue sharing have reopened discussions?
Since the news surfaced though, China Unicom has indicated that Apple has not been in touch with it and that such rumours are nonsense.
China has yet to deploy 3G networks and China Unicom still does not have a 3G license. This should change later this year when the Chinese government finally approves the deployment of such networks.