China Unicom looking to launch iPhone 3G in August?

Word on the street is that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has finally inked a deal that would allow them to break in to the Chinese wireless market with the iPhone 3G. There are rumblings of China Unicom having signed on with Apple to offer the iPhone to its considerable Chinese subscriber-base this August.

Apple has had problems getting any Chinese carrier to commit to its revenue-sharing business model with the original iPhone. But with Apple having dropped their revenue-sharing model in favor of carrier-subsidized pricing, the game may have changed. Carriers are no longer required to kickback iPhone-related revenue to Apple, and are allowed to offer the iPhone 3G through traditional handset-subsidization models - which bodes well for China Unicom finally signing a deal with Apple for the iPhone 3G.

Seeing as how Apple introduced Chinese character recognition in the iPhone OS 2.0 firmware, it makes sense that the iPhone 3G will be making the trip to China.

[Via: ChinaTechNews]