The iPhone may be a record breaker around the world, but there is at least one region where Apple isn't having stunning successes. One of Apple's newest endeavors, the launch of the iPhone in China through China Unicom, has met with relative failure. Since the official launch of the iPhone in China last week, Unicom has managed to snag only a meager 5,000 sales. For a company with over 140 million customers, that's not even a drop in the bucket.

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The Chinese market already has lots of iPhones on the grey market which have wifi. Also nobody is going to pay a relatively extortionate monthly fee for a non-existent 3G network.

iPhone was the first of its kind a long time ago, and entering it as a new product in a hundred million wide customer service that offers more functions at a lesser price makes it a big waste of money.

We even see the chinesse shock series celulars here in Chile (South America), although they don't have much power they do have tv capabilities, multi sim active at once, a lot of memory storage, and so on which makes this very atractive phones.

That's because China's government made them take out the WiFi element and anything else that would be considered cool, so what’s the point in having an iphone if you don't have WiFi. or anything else? Just makes it another phone. I like living in the USA.

I would agree that there have been iPhone knockoffs widely available in China for a long time. More then long enough to take the sheen of the iPhone as an innovative product away. Cost is also a huge stumbling block as Apple refuses to compete on price in any market segment.

heheh, it's probably because of a lot knock off version is already tehre.

Even tho China has a huge market to get, with all those knockoffs (which are popular) im not suprised business is doing poorly. The economy is bad everywhere, including China, they among many other cant afford the steep overprice of the iphone.

No Wi-Fi? Cheap alternatives (alright, knock-offs, but if they work the same then who cares...)? I'm not surprised the actual things arn't selling.

I'm also quite happy to see Apple taking a kick...I should really hold back on my Apple-hating, cudos to their marketing guy, but I loathe apple fan-boys (and girls).

No shock since China now only ahs hacked iphones available for a long time now they have tons of clones etc.. for far less $. I say Google Android 2 FTW and Apple sux.

Doesn't exactly surprise me. The average Chinese citizen most likely can't afford one to begin with, coupled with the fact that there's no Wi-Fi seriously the iPhone over there.

what i understand the iPhone wasnt a big hit in asia in general. Maybe because they have far more advanced devices than an iphone, built on old tech.

China's market is quite big as compared to US or other countries where Iphone is making a killing, but Chinese market is something where people have very low per month salaries and they work all day, so why would one want to spend his savings of the last whole year on a device which doesn't even has Wifi.

Also the Chinese market is filled with Iphone knockoffs and other similar devices which offer similar and sometimes more functionality then the Iphone.

Im surprised iphones are doing porly, i mean China is basically built AROUNF phones, and i thought the iPhone was for everything!

I'm a bit surprised to see the IPhone selling only 5k units in an country that large, even with it doesn't have wifi. It's an apple product we're talking about (not an apple fan). they need a better marketing strategy there. Maybe some new good CM's will boost the sale a bit.

The problem is China have a lot of the latest technology so there are other phones which probably match the iPhone and probably cost much less!

I think Apple products are a waste of money, and I think Chinese people realise that. Westerners don't seem to understand that a phone should not cost that much! I would rather spend my money on a decent portable laptop. The only thing I like about the iPhone is it is a good photo viewer and I am not going to spend that much money so I can show off my photos.

The Cina market is suffocated with local made electronic junk. The Chinese are able to imitate almost any gadget, and sometime the resulted products are in some ways better than the original if you don't mind the crappy finish. Also these chinese clones are a lot cheaper than the originals. That's why Apple can't make a point there...

pointless having WIFI in china since they have adopted a different wireless standard which apple didnt elect to support.

Why buy an iPhone when you can get a cheaper knockoff that has more capabilities? It seems pretty pointless to me. Apple might not be able to make a profit there.