It appears that Apple's plan to introduce its iPhone to 1.3 billion potential Chinese customers may have taken one more step towards reality.

According to ChinaTechNews.com (http://www.chinatechnews.com/2009/02/24/8976-rumor-china-unicom-apple-finally-reach-agreement-on-iphones-entry-into-china/), China Unicom (http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk/en/home/default.html) "reportedly" reached an agreement with Apple that would bring the über-successful smartphone to the world's most populous market as soon as May of this year.

This latest rumor is one in a long series of informed speculation concerning Apple's Chinese plans. One analyst, for example, conjectured that Apple would resurrect (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/07/three_iphones_in_2009/) its original GPS-free iPhone in order to please a security-conscious Chinese government.

Another theory (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/13/iphone_nano_rumors/) is that the ChiPhone will be the oft-scuttlebutted iPhone Nano (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/16/nano_iphone/), a smaller-screen version of the current model.

If true, China Unicom's success in its iPhone negotiations with Apple would be a blow to China Mobile, whose talks with Apple regarding their handling of Chinese iPhone service reportedly broke down (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/15/china_mobile_iphone/) over a year ago.

But the China Unicom deal makes sense - if only because China Mobile has been granted the uniquely Chinese TD-SCDMA standard in the three-way 3G contract distribution recently announced (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/15/cat_keynes_china_3g/) by the Chinese government.

In that three-provider deal, China Telecom was awarded the contract for Qualcomm’s not-terribly-widespread CDMA-2000 standard, and China Unicom was grated the rights to WCDMA.

The iPhone supports WCDMA. China Unicom is a WCDMA provider.

ChinaTechNews.com's rumor makes sense. ®

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