Would the Olympics Look Better on an iPhone?

Posted on July 2, 2008
Filed Under Beijing Olympics, China Business, Mobile |

China Mobile (SEHK: 0941, announcements, news) , the world’s biggest telephone company, is closer to reaching an agreement to offer Apple’s iPhone after the US consumer electronics firm stopped demanding operators to surrender part of the monthly telephone bill.

“Apple’s policy of requiring revenue-sharing has been the biggest obstacle in the past,” Rainie Lei, a spokeswoman for China Mobile, said yesterday. “Now this has been removed, we can focus on other practical issues of co-operation.”

An accord with Apple may help boost China Mobile’s average user spending, which dropped 3.5 per cent in the first quarter after the operator expanded in rural areas.

Will a TD-SCDMA iPhone be on sale in two weeks? In time for the Olympics? Too bad Apple isn’t an Olympic sponsor, it would have been a marketing coup to be associated with the Olympics.

Wait a minute. Or would it have been a marketing coup for the Olympics to be associated with Apple? Hmmm…