China's mobile users have to wait a quite while to get their own iPhone. Apple’s latest attempt to bring iPhone to China broke down for the third times --this time over App Store mechanism, according to MocoNews.
In the latest round—their third—the two haggled over which company would sell iPhone applications directly to customers. As it does everywhere else, Apple wanted to sell directly to consumers through its App Store. China Mobile chiefs, however, balked at this. Wang apparently considered the notion of Apple interacting and directly collecting payment from Chinese consumers as a "threat" to the operator’s dominance over the country’s mobile internet market.
The first two negotiations stalled when China Mobile rejected Apple’s proposal on profit sharing schemes (1. Apple gets a 20-30 percent cut of the revenues; 2. China Mobile should buy each iPhone at $600 a unit and subsidize the handset).
[via MocoNews]
When I saw that pic, with the communist China’s flag, I felt it’s some sort of a symbolism to show that Apple locks iPhone down pretty much the same way Chinese government locks its people down. Something to think about, isn’t it?