- By
- DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI
- ,
- LORRAINE LUK
- ,
- IAN SHERR
- and
- PAUL MOZUR
- CONNECT
A deal would cap years of negotiations between the two companies. Apple has tried to hammer out a deal with China's largest wireless carrier that has 700 million subscribers, seven times the size of the U.S.'s largest wireless carrier Verizon Wireless. Greater China is Apple's third biggest market after the U.S. and Europe in terms of sales.
It isn't clear if Apple and China Mobile have signed an official sales agreement, but the fact that Apple is planning to ship phones implies a deal has been struck.
The decision to offer a cheaper iPhone to China Mobile, one of the world's last major operators that doesn't carry Apple's smartphones, comes at a critical moment for the Cupertino, Calif., company. The iPhone, Apple's best-selling product, is losing share to competitors including Samsung Electronics Co. and its large array of smartphones, while wrestling with the perception the company is starting to lose its innovative touch.
Apple's sales in Greater China fell 14% from a year earlier to $4.6 billion during its fiscal third quarter ended June 29. In the second quarter, Apple's China market share fell to 5%, ranking it seventh behind market leader Samsung, which had 18%, and a cluster of domestic manufacturers such as Lenovo Group Ltd. and Huawei Technologies Co., according to data from research firm Canalys.
Apple has asked Foxconn, its longtime contract manufacturing partner, to add China Mobile to the list of carriers slated to receive a new low-cost iPhone, one of these people said. It isn't clear when the phones would be delivered. Apple is shipping two new iPhones this September, according to people familiar with the company's plans, including a new high-end model and a cheaper version.
—Juro Osawa in Hong Kong and Kersten Zhang in Beijing contributed to this article.
