Apple finally reeled in the biggest fish, announcing over the weekend that it finally secured a deal with China Mobile to offer its iPhone products beginning next month. China Mobile is the world’s largest wireless carrier with more than 760 million subscribers.
Apple said the multi-year deal will see the device giant offer up both the latest iPhone 5S and 5C models compatible with China Mobile’s unique TD-SDCMA 3G network as well as its recently launched TD-LTE network. Customers will be able to register for the devices beginning Dec. 25, with the device available in retail stores beginning Jan. 17. Device pricing is set to be announced closer to launch.
China Mobile’s unique 3G network has been seen as one stumbling block to the launch of Apple products as the TD-SCDMA technology is somewhat unique to the Chinese market. China Mobile rivals China Telecom and China Unicom both run more common CDMA-based and GSM-based 3G networks respectively and have been offering various iPhone models for many years.
China Mobile’s TD-LTE network runs across a total of 130 megahertz of spectrum that China’s government last month set aside for the deployment of the service. That spectrum will be spread across the 1880-1900 MHz, 2320-2370 MHz and 2575-2635 MHz bands. China Mobile began announcing vendors for its new network earlier this year, including Ericsson, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and ZTE. China Mobile said it expects to provide TD-LTE coverage across 16 markets by the end of this year and to more than 340 cities using more than 500,000 base stations by the end of 2014.
China Unicom and China Telecom also received 40 megahertz each of wireless spectrum in which to launch TD-LTE services. The China Unicom spectrum is in the 2300-2320 MHz and 2555-2575 MHz bands, while China Telecom will use spectrum in the 2370-2390 MHz and 2635-2655 MHz bands.
Despite not officially offering the iPhone, China Mobile has reported supporting more than 15 million Apple products on its network due to a thriving local industry of hacking into the device to enable compatibility.
Boost for Sprint?
Analysts noted the deal with China Mobile could also spell good news for Sprint, which is in the process of rolling out its own TD-LTE network using the 2.5 GHz spectrum band as part of its Spark program. The current iPhone lineup offered by Sprint is not compatible with the band being used by Sprint (Band Class 41), though it does have support for Band Class 38 and Band Class 40 being used by China Mobile. Band Class 38 overlaps with spectrum in Band Class 41.
Sprint does offer the iPhone for its LTE service running across its 1.9 GHz spectrum band (Band Class 25). Clearwire last year garnered chipset support for Band Class 41 from Qualcomm, with Sprint recently rolling out devices that support both Band Class 25 and 41.
“Given that the iPhone continues to be the most embraced high end smartphone in the [United States], having this device support this spectrum band and the TDD LTE technology should strengthen Sprint’s competitive position in future quarters,” explained Jennifer Fritzsche, senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. “As we have written, we believe speed and throughput capabilities will be the main crux of Sprint’s messaging in the [second half of 2014] and beyond. Having the iPhone as part of that message will be key to getting potential customers to listen and consider Sprint’s service, in our view.”
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