If the iPhone without 3G or Wi-Fi was bad enough, here’s some more bad news for the mobile users in China.Â
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which has been more widely referred to as the “Tube” is all set to hit China, albeit without 3G or Wi-Fi. The lack of 3G may be due to the lack of coverage in China, but there’s hardly any reason to negate the W-Fi on the phone.Â
No 3G and no Wi-Fi on a phone running Symbian S60 5th Edition with a full touchscreen front, makes it what, a hollow “Tube” ?
If you’re from either China or India, we know hard it has been for you to lay your hands on the iPhone. While the former doesn’t even sell the iPhone on sale, the mobile consumers in India have been let down owing to the high prices of the iPhone.
If it’s any consolation to you, the Meizu M8, one of the very first and more popular iPhone clone out there is scheduled to be launched in both the countries around December. The phone’s bears a striking resemblance to the Apple iPhone and has been dubbed as “the” iPhone clone by many.
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Come December and GeekITStores are all set to launch the phone, first in China and then in India. According to their press release, the phone will be launched with complete ‘fanfare’ in the Chinese markets and will soon follow with a launch in India through the channel partners.
Cellular News is reporting that the iPhone is shortly due to launch ‘officially’ with China Mobile:
China Mobile is expected to officially launch the Apple iPhone on its network shortly – but with some of the functionality removed to comply with Chinese regulations. The South China Morning Post, citing a report from the Daiwa Institute of Research said that the 3G and Wi-Fi services would be disabled on the Chinese model.
Apparently Apple is not insisting on revenue-share any more. One assumes they want to sell as many iPhones as possible to the estimated 28 million Chinese who’re up for buying one.
Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, which has a good 42% market share in China selling over 70 million handsets in 2007, plans to support all the three 3G standards that are being planned to be employed in the country.Â
Three different operators in the country, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom (Yeah, keep up with the names please) are planning to use three different 3G standards for their respective subscriber base. Although China Mobile has planned to implement the Chinese developed 3G standard TD-SCDMA, Chila Telecom has picked CDMA2000 while China Unicom has shown its love towards WCDMA standard.Â
In an effort to maintain its numero uno position in the Chinese market, Nokia is planning to launch handsets supporting all of these standards. David Tang, VP of Greater China Sales, while speaking to the South China Morning Post, said:
Nokia supports the development of TD-SCDMA. We will have the handsets in the market when the service becomes active,
It is interesting to note that China Mobile, which has a market share of nearly 70%, has plans to use the TD-SCDMA 3G standard. However, Nokia currently does not have any TD-SCDMA handsets in the market.
You’re in the fourth largest country in the world, sitting in a stadium filled with thousands of people present there to watch some of the most spectacular shows and acts ever made, what do you do? I, for one, would have my eyes glued to the performers. But that’s not what the 24,000 users, present at the closing ceremony, did. These users, in the middle of the performances, chose to use their cellphones, reports Cellular News.
A total of over 490,000 phone calls were made on the country’s GSM network, in and around the Beijing National Stadium, on the eve of the Opening and Closing ceremonies for Olympics. Before you start making remarks about the Chinese, the report goes on to mention that 20,000 of the total users were international roaming service users. Believable?
Surprisingly, a spokesperson for China Mobile went on to reveal that they achieved 100 percent call connection rate and only around 0.27 percent of the calls were dropped.
The company also gifted 15,000 phones to Olympic officials.
More interesting stats – according to EJL Wireless Research, the number of TD-SCDMA subscribers is set to hit 12 million by 2012 with roughly the same number of terminals expected to be sold in the same year, at 11.5 million.
Given that TD-SCDMA is the Chinese government’s baby and it’s been pushing it heavily for years – and also given the relative size of the Chinese market – I’m wondering what’s gone wrong with this particular flavour of 3G. After all, China Mobile even gave away 15,000 devices to draw attention to the TD-SCDMA launch.
Or is it just the case that the numbers will be so low because TD-SCDMA will have been superceded by LTE by then?
It looks like July 4th is going to be a big day. As well as the Mobile 2.0 Europe Conference Louis Vuitton is launching audio guides for three Chinese cities – Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is being powered by Clicmobile and they say:
“Louis Vuitton offers a perfectly synchronised audio journey in which the voice of the narrator geographically guides the physical visitor in real time through an area of a city or a district.”
I say, it sounds a lot like the CoolGorilla guide for London called, inspiringly, the London Travel Guide.
If you’re going to Beijing then you can travel around with Louis Vuitton, if you’re in London you can be a CoolGorilla.
Japan’s biggest handset maker, Sharp, is off to pastures new – targeting the massive Chinese market with high end devices, according to Reuters.
The Wall Street Journal says Sharp will trade off its TV brand, launching a range of phones under the Aquos banner. The first device will sell for 4,480 yuan (around £333) and come with a 3.2 megapixel camera.
The Chinese market is notoriously tough and recently some handset makers have admitted defeat and ceased selling their wares in the country. Targeting the bigger spenders might prove a wise move for Sharp though: there’s a big enthusiasm for higher-spec phones, as the 400,000 unlocked iPhones that turned up on China Mobile proved.
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