Nearly three out of four switched from giant China Mobile, according to China’s No. 2 carrier
A Deutsche Bank note to clients issued Wednesday has culled several interesting Apple (AAPL) data points from Chinese-language reports:
- China Unicom (CHU), Apple’s exclusive iPhone carrier on the mainland, claims it now has more than 1 million iPhone contract users
- 73% of those users are also China Mobile (CHL) subscribers, something the carrier knows because customers must provide their current number when they buy a new iPhone
- 35%-38% of those dual users say that they will use both numbers for another 6 months, presumably to avoid early termination fees
- The average return per iPhone user to China Mobile is 260 yuan ($39), compared with 134 yuan ($20) for 3G users and 39.8 yuan ($6) for 2G.
- China Unicom is in talks with Apple to bring 3G iPads to the mainland. Currently government regulations restrict sales to the Wi-Fi only version.
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
