5,000 iPhones Sold in China First Weekend

5,000 iPhones were sold in China in the first four days it was available. Ouch. I’m only guessing here but I think the fact that a knock-off iPhony costs a hundred times less than an iPhone might have something to do with it. Thanks to Donovan for the link on this one.

The exclusive carrier for the device in the country, China Unicom, said Tuesday that it signed up 5,000 iPhone subscribers in the first four days it was available. While that's certainly not a blockbuster opening weekend, the carrier says it's pleased nonetheless.

When you consider the phones sold for 7,000 yuan (~$1,000) without a contract or 21,000 yuan ($3,000) over the course of a two-year, I'd be pleased with only 5k units sold too.

My chinese iPhone knockoff was 299. Has served me well for over a year even after being dropped, stepped on, and drowned. Windows mobile so theres tons and tons of free software for it. Who needs apple and their $1000 dollar phone with pay to use apps?

Most Chinese people that want one already have one through either knock offs or the massive grey market.

Those that haven't are probably big texters, bit hard to text with 'em if you're Chinese apparently

Exactly, those wealthy people (very minority) in China that wants an iPhone already got one from gray market. The China edition of iPhone also lacks WiFi access (due to government ban) and costs more then gray market import, go figure.

So, let's assume that there is linear growth with 1,250 iphones sold per day. That means, based on the assumption that the population of china is 1,330,044,544, that 0.000000094% of the population will obtain the iphone each day. At that rate, with a constant population size, it will only take 2,915 years for Apple to have 100% saturation. I think Apple is on to something here.