Apple's iPhone 4 China debut, 100,000 units in four days

By on Sep 29, 2010 at 8:01 AM
General September 29, 2010

Vice President of China Unicom, Li Gang, told reporters that his company has completely sold through their first shipment of iPhone 4s. The shipment, which totaled 100,000 units, took just four days to sell out. The Chinese mobile operator also reported that over 200,000 customers have pre-ordered the device; the company has since stopped taking online reservations due to the demand. When the iPhone 3G and 3GS launched, it took one month for China Unicom to sell 100,000 devices. Analyst Liu Liang credited a record number of Chinese mobile users adopting smartphones, as well as positive media attention around the iPhone 4, as possible reasons for the strong sales numbers. China Unicom is expected to get their next shipment of iPhone 4s around October 1.

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  • Android

    Don’t believe this for one second. With all the great Android hardware released in China, albeit without the Android Market, there’s no way this over-priced shindig would sell this much. NO WAY.

    • J…

      The population of China is something like 1.5 BILLION, add to the fact the iPhone 4 is a pretty decent handset.

      If you find this hard to believe you probably should have another coffee.

      • Asad

        I was about to say the something man. 100k is nothing in China. I am afraid that it will hit 1 million soon, because Chinese love beautiful stuff with nothing in it :D

      • OUTtheWINDOW

        Let me correct that population…it’s 25 BILLION!!! LOL!

      • AbdNasser

        How could it be 25 billion? The world has only between 7 to 8 billion up to 2025 people.

    • Jake One

      Hong Kong.

    • ChocoTaco

      It really isn’t that much. Verizon sold every single Droid X they had in stock in stores and online/in all their warehouses the first day, and that was limited to only VZW customers. China has what, 5 times the population of the US? According to Wiki, China Unicom had 125 million GSM subscribers in 2008 – so I assume that China Unicom has way more than that now.

      Basically, what I’m gathering is with double the subscriber base of AT&T and VZW, it took a whopping 4 days to sell a lousy 100,000 units. That seems pretty sad to me, and it screams that China doesn’t really care for the iPhone as they surely have a tsunami of better options.

      • Tdot34

        Probably because they don’t have a FanBoi legion that prays to their overlord Steve Jobs every night, where he instructs them to go out and buy every new “Updated” device. What was the latest iPhone 4 stat, 75% already owned the 3GS…

      • reason

        like you guys pray to Google…

      • ldgregg

        Yes, the iPhone 4 would appear to be off to a slow start when you consider the population number. However, AVAILABILITY appears to be the issue here. China Unicom is reporting inventory shortages. The 200K number that’s being reported is for PRE-orders and they are struggling to increase inventory.

      • Mgl

        @ChocoTaco or it could be that they’re not making iphone 4s quickly enough to meet the demand.

      • MicroNix

        Then that signals poor planning on Apple’s part, no?

      • ChocoTaco

        Read: it took 4 days to sell out, not 1. If that were the issue, they would have sold out on Day One like the Droid X. There were more than enough iPhone’s to make it through half the week before stock was an issue.

      • ChocoTaco

        If they sold all 100,000 units in one day, I would believe that. However, they had more than enough units for an entire 3 days. The demand just wasn’t there. Shit, the original Droid sold 250,000 units in the first week and that was before the masses really knew about Android. The fact that a subscriber base the size of AT&T and VZW combined couldn’t sell 100,000 iPhones in a DAY, let alone 4 DAYS, isn’t encouraging. I’m assuming the Chinese market doesn’t have the hypnotically brainwashing ads Apple spends the $$$ on in the US, though, so I’m assuming the legions of zombies aren’t there per capita.

      • Darktanone

        Have you seen the actual sales figures on those Droids? We don’t know how many were sold. At least we have the actual figures for the iPhone. These figures are actually quite good for China which is a developing country.

      • WT

        For those who don’t know, prepaid is much more popular than contract plans. Although China has an expanding middle class (before anyone says anything about this, its by their standards, not US standards) many are not going to spend $800 USD for a mobile phone, and again many prefer prepaid. I have relatives that visits China on a bi-yearly bases, friends and family always recommend prepaid. Also in mainland China high-end phones are commonly stolen, some just grab and run. It’s tough even for the above average person to carry around an $800 phone. They have a phone craze, but its very different from the phone craze we have in the US.

    • android fanboy

      What do you mean sell this much? They only sold 100,000 that sounds pretty bad compared to what they do in america.

  • yup

    There ws positive media attention on the iphone 4??????????

    • darktanone

      Yup, sure was! Sold 3 million in a few days. Of course, if you look at the world through GOOGLE eyes, that wouldn’t be good news. yuk, yuk.

  • Matt

    Apple’s closed and controlling mindset fits in great with China!

  • PAPINYC

    That store front looks very lonely, I only count 4 people there; I don’t see any lines trailing around the block; where are all the masses?

    • ouch

      in your mom

    • Chris

      This photo was taken at the Apple Store located at the Village on Sanlitun in Beijing. I lived a block from here for two years. It had never looked that empty except when staff was either closing or opening the store. Be careful with your assumptions. During normal business hours this place is packed.

      • KNUTE

        It’s a rendering, not a photo, most likely created to showcase the building before it was built, rather than the people hovering around outside.

  • Yaw

    wtf are u doing hère fandroid. dont hâte cause Apple mâles gréât products.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Worcester Americas

  • http://www.apple.com Steve jobs

    hee hee I win

  • thebluetoothkid

    So let me get this. US Over a million sold in 3 days at launch with a population of only 350 million

    China only 100K in 4 days at launch with population over 1.1 billion.

    that sounds like a failure to me

    • Sugar Grove

      Wise man say…
      Great Wall was built one brick at a time.

      • S T

        Given the similar price point to iPhones in the US, I don’t think anyone expects the same % market penetration in a market where the average income is about one-tenth.

      • Sugar Grove

        Is the selling price around $1,000.00 U.S. there?

      • S T

        Comparing non-contract, it’s $750 for 16g and $900 for 32g iPhone 4 in China, so a decent amount more than the US.

    • ?

      haha, um…we have a shit load more stores than china buddy…do your math with accessibility included…

    • Darktanone

      Don’t be so short sighted. China is a developing country with the per capita income less than $2000 per year. For the average Chinese, this is a big purchase and you wouldn’t expect the same numbers as here-at least for now.

    • Hey you

      Yea, sold out of ALL THEY HAVE AVAILABLE with so many pre-orders they had to stop takin them.

      Yea, big faiulre.

  • http://www.apple.com Steve jobs

    I am the best!

  • Mj

    I agree with Bluetooth kid 100k isn’t alot for a population that makes up damn there 1/3 of he world

    • Chut Pata

      More like 1/5.

    • Hey you

      Yea, sold out of ALL THEY HAVE AVAILABLE with so many pre-orders they had to stop takin them.

      Yea, big, big failure.

  • Joe

    That’s actually a pretty decent number considering one it sold out and also the price of the phone unlocked, which most living in china buy the phone unlocked to keep their same plan and number. I would say not too bad considering the competition from other platforms and also the grey market imports

    • MicroNix

      So if Apple shipped 10 devices to China and sold out, that is a great start, right? All that matter is that they sold out, right?

  • Mj

    I guess everyone else bought he airPhone lol

  • Chut Pata

    Also keep in mind the fact is a third world country like India. The only difference being that India tries to hide the fact, and China tries to project that fact.

    • S T

      Good point, throwing tens of billions on the Olympics and World Expo really back up that “fact”

  • Speed racer

    Antennagate my ass!

  • Obj_me

    Sounds right to me…while the i4 may have sold over a million at launch with a population of only 350 mil vs 100,000 for ~1.5 billion one needs to acknowledge economic factors such as per capita income, cost of living, inflation, the cost of a subsidized phone vs unlocked. Also did you not see the other 200,000 pre orders? I know some of you may hate apple just because it’s become trendy in the tech world but don’t make ignorant comments…consider the facts first!

  • Perspective

    This is a reminder of what a failure the Nexus One was, since it took 74 days to sell 135,000 Nexus Ones in the U.S.

    • MJ

      well the nexus one had almost no advertisement.. most people now dont know what the nexus one is unless your tech savy

      • MJ

        also it wasnt sold in any retail stores so being able to even view a nexus one was hard unless you bought it

  • namelesstwo

    A 100thou i4s in 4 days, plus 200thou pre-ordered in a country of 1.5 bil peeps, is absolutely awesome, when one considers that only about 0.5% of them have the expendable cash to afford it.

  • sprat

    so 100,000 iPhones in 4 days is positive in a giant market like China and 150,000 (or whatever the accurate number is for the torch) in one weekend on one carrier in the USA is negative?

    • Hey you

      Yea, sold out of ALL THEY HAVE AVAILABLE with so many pre-orders they had to stop takin them.

      Yea, very big faiulre.

  • newyork

    @MicroNix, where are your math skills? 100,000 isn’t 10…

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • badforurbrain

    @Asad… r u high?

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

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