Apple to sell 40 million iPhones in China next year?

After another mind-blowing quarter, Apple has far but settled - the company is planning to expand its presence in China and sell as much as the whopping 40 million iPhones in the Asian country in 2013, if we are to believe a Morgan Stanley report by Katy Huberty.

The analyst suggests that Apple is to partner with two huge Chinese carriers - China Mobile and China Telecom. This will extend Apple’s reach as it is currently working with China Unicom which has “only” a 150 million subscriber base. With over a billion of population, there’s plenty of growth and Huberty says that China Unicom only reaches 10% of the country’s “high-end” subscribers.

Additionally, Huberty suggests that the sixth edition of the iPhone, expected to arrive as the iPhone 5, will get announced in the third quarter of the year. 

The real boost however is to come when the handset arrives on China Mobile, believed to have the most “high-end” subscribers. The Morgan Stanley report hints that the next iPhone will support the carrier’s 4G-LTE network. China Mobile had 10 million iPhone on its network despite the fact that it doesn’t officially sell them and users have to make do with snail-fast 2G speeds due to frequency incompatibility.

Apple’s launch of the iPhone 4S in China was met with unexpected enthusiasm and as the crowd gathered and fights started, the company was forced to cancel in-store sales in the last minute.

source: AppleInsider