iPhone sales soar in China
After a slow start, iPhone sales are soaring in China.
During yesterday's financial conference call, Apple COO Tim Cook answered questions about the iPhone's performance in what he calls "greater China" (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), uncharacteristically sharing some numbers:
"The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed for the six month period our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200% year-over-year."
The folks at Brainstrom Tech did some math and figured that represented 2.1 million iPhones sold (give or take) in a 6-month span -- a number that beat Wall Street's Q2 2010 estimates by 25% to 30%.
Initially, the iPhone failed to thrive in China due in part to an active black market and the Golden Shield Project (GSP), which censors certain Internet content. To comply with the GSP, devices that include wireless Internet have been required to use China's own WAPI standard. Meeting that requirement forced Apple to re-design the iPhone for China.
Fortunately for Chinese customers, carriers and Apple, that ruling was recently changed to allow or Wi-Fi capable iPhones. Late last year China Unicom launched a 46-city roadshow tour promoting the iPhone.
