Mobile Computing News

Photo: Apple

With over 687 million subscribers, China is the largest mobile phone market in the world. It is no wonder then that two giants, Apple and Google, are pushing hard for the monopoly.

While Google have been at blows with Beijing over censorship issues – something about the Chinese government launching cyber attacks against Google source code and the accounts of known human rights activists – Apple aim to open 25 retail stores within the next two years.

It´s who you know, after all

Apple made a name for themselves developing and selling desktop computers but have recently redefined themselves as a mobile devices company – think iPad, launched earlier this year to revolutionise everything from media production to media consumption and which is expected to be in stores by the end of the month and a smartphone crossed with a laptop.

Photo: Apple

Anyway, coming back to China, Apple launched their iPhone last year hoping to tap into the huge mobile phone market but it wasn’t long before their relationship with China Mobile, the world’s biggest wireless carrier, soured. China Mobile had expansion ideas of their own, launching their Ophone in September 2009, aiming to boost its local 3G services, expanding on its handset portfolios.

But the iPad geniuses are good at strategy too, and are cashing in, if you will, on long-time friendships in the retail sector. A large retailer chain, Di Xing Tong, owns hundreds of store fronts in China. Foxconn owns the entire chain. Most of Apple’s products are manufactured by Foxconn. How do you like them Apples?

Matt Mathison, managing principal of equity research firm Wedge Partners, was reported to have said that through this route, battling only against highly competitive local prices and a growing black market, sales of iPhones could double.

And in the Google camp

Photo: Android

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said a few weeks ago that there is no plan to leave China’s mobile phone market because there are other businesses Google hope to see successful – even if that means being forced to close local search services for refusing to bow to censorship. Very noble, when considering that 4 out of 5 people believe Internet access is a fundamental human right.

And in a move considered by some as a clutching at straws, especially having postponed the launch in China of their Android, Google aimed to stimulate mobile Internet use, which would boost its search advertising business, by launching an online store to sell handsets and services from operators in US and China.

Either way, the world of communication is changing, and along with it, everything else, from dating to education, business to leisure.