Apple Inc. (AAPL), ending six years of negotiations, struck a deal to sell the iPhone through China Mobile Ltd., giving both companies a means to fight declining share in the market of 1.2 billion wireless subscribers.
China Mobile will sell the iPhone 5s and 5c models in its retail stores starting January 17, 2014, the companies said in a statement that provided no financial terms.
The phones for China Mobile’s network will also be available in Apple’s retail stores in China under the multiyear accord.
The agreement means Apple now has access to all carriers in the world’s biggest handset market, where Samsung leads and smartphones using Google Inc.’s Android operating system dominate sales.
For China Mobile, which has 763 million users, the deal may help draw high-end subscribers to its new fourth-generation network while the company faces its first annual profit decline in more than a decade.
“The China Mobile deal will significantly help Apple’s position in China,” Bryan Wang, principal analyst and country manager in China for Forrester Research, said. “China Mobile will use the iPhone to win back some high-end subscribers who chose to defect to other carriers because of the iPhone.”
Apple rose 3 percent to $565.37 per share at 10:10am in New York, on Monday. Shares of China Mobile rose 0.8 percent to HK$80.55 in Hong Kong, paring this year’s decline to 11 percent.
China Mobile may add 12 million new iPhone sales for Apple in 2014, Katy Huberty, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a December 16 report. The company sold 150 million all of last year.
Pre-registration for China Mobile will start December 25 with pricing and availability to be announced at a later date, according to the statement. Apple declined to comment further.
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