Chinu: China Mobile (CM) is on TDSCDMA, a homegrown variation of CDMA which is the creation of Irwin Jacobs who founded Qualcomm. That technology of TDSCDMA is not used anywhere except China and the government pushed that system for pride and to avoid the usual royalty payable to Qualcomm.
Since the Chinese government is behind the system, China Mobile becomes the largest carrier in China. CM does not have iPhone in their network, yes, there are some iPhone that has been tweaked around in order to work with that system, but of course it is very few and far in between. It might even lose some of important features, but it has the look of an iPhone.
With CM, Apple does not have the cloud like in the US when Apple started with exclusive ddeal with ATT and Verizon was left behind. Now the dilemma is: would you build iPhone for TDSCDMA and produce enough for CM, or wait until LTE become the norm? It will take time if Apple choose the route of home grown system, and now CM uses Huawei and other phone makers. If waiting for LTE, when will that happen? Apple will be left behind.
Chinese people are good in business. They are all over, Many generations ago, they went to other countries with only a penis as a capital, spoke no local language, did not bring any soldiers to colonize the country, and yet, every where you'll find them flourishing, setting up shops etc. Even when Sir Edmund Hillary reached the top of Mt Everest with Sherpa Tensing, he was greeted by a Chinese couple offering hot teaching and had lodging for the two pioneers to spend teh night.
That's what Apple is facing with China Mobile. CM demands a share of iTunes. Which carrier in America gets a piece of iTunes? CM can say. we have over 600 million suscribers, that's more than 1 1/2 the population of the US. If you don't want it, it is OK, we have other suppliers.
Therefore, TC saying that China will be greater than the US is quite correct. But unfortunately, not necessarily for Apple, but for all others. |
