China’s mobile phone war: Anything you can do, I can do better
If you’ve been itching to get your hands on an iPhone but haven’t had a chance to make the trip to Hong Kong (or Shanghai’s (in)famous electronics markets), help is one the way. China's mobile phone war is truly underway.
China Unicom begins selling Apple's iPhones on the mainland today.
We still don’t know if we’re ready to give up our China Mobile service, even over an iPhone, but it’s good to know legit ones will finally be available. This is China Unicom’s bid to regain some of its lost market share, from industry leader China Mobile, in China's lucrative mobile phone war.
Before today, iPhones smuggled in from Hong Kong, iPhone knock-offs and those models that take a bit of creative license, (like the iPhone Mini -- yes, those do exist) were easily available to consumers.
China Unicom has clearly chosen its weapon in the 3G mobile phone war, as has China Mobile, which is backing the Google Android-based model.
Although China Unicom has beaten China Mobile to the market, the OPhone is not far behind, and should be launched the week beginning October 5.
Referred to as the “iPhone killer” the OPhone, or O1, "symbolizes that competition between the OPhone and the iPhone has fully begun," says Lenovo in a statement released to the press.
Meanwhile, China Mobile plans to launch more smartphones made by Dell and Taiwan's HTC.
To continue the one-upmanship of this mobile phone war, China Unicom also plans to sell its own Google phones made by Samsung in December. The phone will sell for a reported RMB 4,500.
We can't wait.
