China Mobile works up ad for 3G version of the Apple iPhone 5s and Apple iPhone 5c

Apple's bean counters are going to have a lot more beans to count if a leaked advertisement is legit. A poster ad for the world's largest carrier, China Mobile, shows 3G versions of the new Apple iPhone 5s and Apple iPhone 5c for the mobile operator. The carrier's unique TD-SCDMA 3G pipeline has been keeping the iPhone out of the hands of the mobile operator's 740 million subscribers.

Strangely enough, the Apple iPhone 5s and Apple iPhone 5c have been approved by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for use over China Mobile's 4G network. On the other hand, the Chinese government has not yet issued 4G operating licenses for any Chinese carrier. The carrier could wait to receive the license, but there is no time reference as to when that might take place. A software update will convert the China Mobile sold iPhones to the carrier's 4G LTE network once it is up and running.

Getting China Mobile and Apple to agree on a variant of the phone that runs over TD-SCDMA has been a long time wish for Wall Street analysts and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who made comments months ago about the country eventually becoming Apple's largest market. In fact, if China Mobile and Apple do hook up, it would be quite a feather in the cap for CEO Cook who has been allegedly warned by Apple's board about the lack of innovation seen lately at the Cupertino based company. Cook made various trips to China to meet with officials from China Mobile in an attempt to get an agreement. There have been various rumors that both Apple and China Mobile agreed to a deal, but the ad is the first sign that the speculation could be true.

For the first time ever, China was included as one of the countries for the initial launch of the two new iPhone units. Unlike the process in other countries, Apple allowed Chinese consumers to make reservations for the new models, including the iPhone 5s, in order to avoid the violence that occurred in the country with the launch of the Apple iPhone 4s.

source: AppleInsider