An agreement was signed between China Unicom and Apple recently. Many believe that the company will get its revenues promoted.

Apple reached an agreement with China Unicom, the country's second-largest mobile operator. And its iphone is going to be launched in China at the end of the year.

China Unicom on Friday said it would start selling the 3G iPhone in the fourth quarter after signing a non-exclusive three-year contract with Apple. It hoped the introduction of the iPhone would boost falling profitability.

The company said on Friday that first-half net profit fell 42.1 per cent to Rmb6.62bn ($969m) amid heated competition, while revenues dropped 4.3 per cent to Rmb74.51bn.

Chang Xiaobing, chairman and chief executive, said he expected iPhones to lure more high-end users who spend more on data services.He said,“IPhones will help us to change the structure of our customer base and improve [average revenue per user]”. However, it would not use Apple's traditional revenue-sharing model and would instead pay the group on a wholesale basis.

However, things probably won't look bright for China Unicom. Analysts doubted how much of a boost the iPhone would provide to China Unicom as grey-market iPhones not tied to any operator are widely available.

“I fear marketing expenses of the whole industry will rise because of this,” said Marvin Lo, analyst at Daiwa Securities.

Perhaps the cooperation will help to alleviate the difficult situation for China Unicom temporarily. To deal with the root of the problem, it needs to turn to technology innovation, I believe.
China Unicom , iphone , technology innovation , mobile operator

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