Android, Not Apple, Is The Big China Deal

Apple’s deal to provide China Unicom with iPhone handsets is the headline news of the day, but the really important deal is HTC’s agreement with China Mobile, which has three times the number of subscribers as China Unicom, showcasing the Android operating system pushed by Google.

Apple made the deal with the second-largest carrier in China because it’s the only one with a 3G network that’s compatible with the iPhone, giving Google a golden opening to strike a deal to showcase its operating system to some 438 million potential subscribers. A third Chinese wireless carrier, China Telecom, is expected to strike a deal with either Nokia or Research in Motion, further crowding Apple’s space.

Ultimately, the handset battle will boil down to a contest between the status-symbol iPhone and more functional Android.

The Wall Street Journal also noted:

Analysts said the Unicom iPhone’s success will hinge largely on offerings in the App Store, where users can download software applications for the device. Updating the iPhone software is currently inconvenient, and very few of the applications available now are tailored to the Chinese market.

For the iPhone to succeed, it’s going to have to:

• overcome anti-U.S. sentiment;
• meet the challenge of Chinese character-sets; and
• have lots of App Store-ready apps for the Chinese market.

Android, on the other hand, must:

• fend off Nokia, Samsung and RIM as the non-cool, non-iPhone handset of choice;
• overcome the status symbol represented by the iPhone; and
• overcome the cachet of “Made in the U.S.A.”

(Yes, there is a contradiction there, but there is both pro- and anti-American sentiment in China, as everywhere, representing a challenge for both vendors.)

[Image source: samuraispy via Flickr]