Apple Strikes Deal with China Mobile

Surely one of the biggest projects for Tim Cook, Grand Poobah of Apple was to not only deliver on to me a large screen fruit phone (so far #fail) but to also land the iPhone in to the China market. As of yesterday his success percentage was goose eggs but he has got himself to .500 today with the much anticipated announcement that Apple has reached a deal with China Mobile. The iPhone has been a hit with the folks in China that can afford it, but have been largely overshadowed by lower cost Android phones to the masses. 

The go live date according to Apple is January 17th and the expected sales are anywhere between 10 and 40 million. Wow, they nailed that forecast didn’t they? However, Timmy is telling some China news agency that Apple has already sold 50 million fruit phones to China over the past 2-1/2 years so it is pretty safe to say that with carrier support that Apple sales should be higher for 2014. This deal could not come quick enough for Apple either because of the sales I just mentioned were sharply declining because of Samsung laying the smack down on Apple with market share growth from 14% to 21%. Sammy knocking 1.7% of the taste out of Apple’s mouth in the form of a market share decline from 7.9% to 6.2%.

So atta’ boy Tim and the Apple International Sales Team, kick your feet up and drink some Rum flavored Egg Nogg this Christmas and watch for some sales in China in 2014.