Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in October on the company’s fourth quarter earnings call that it expects the iPhone 5 to arrive in mainland China by December.
In November, the iPhone 5 received regulatory approval for two versions of the iPhone 5 — a 3G/GSM version for China Unicom’s network, the second largest in the country; and a CDMA version for China Telecom’s network, the country’s third largest network. But it wasn’t that simple. Apple also needed to receive a network-access license.
With the iPhone 5’s debut in China today, all the hurdles are clear and the company is home free to sell the long-awaited 4-inch smartphone in a country with a potential user base of more than 340 million, or around 25 percent of China’s ever-growing population. Cook said on the Q4 earnings call that Apple generated $23.8 billion in China, up by $10 billion year-on-year, representing a 78 percent rise from the same quarter a year ago.
Interestingly, despite the massive increase in sales in the country, China only represents around 15 percent of Apple’s global revenue for the 2012 fiscal year.
