A report from China says the Apple iPhone 5 has gained approval in China earlier than expected. This could possibly lead to a launch in October. The 3C (China Compulsory Certification) appears to have approved the iPhone 5 quicker than previous iPhone models, which had taken up to two months to receive certification.
Earlier this week, two models of iPhones had received the China Compulsory Certificate approval — one with model number A1429, which is likely for China Unicom’s WCDMA network; the other model is A1442, which would be geared for China Telecom’s CDMA2000 network. For Chinese carrier to sell the iPhone 5 in the country, it requires to obtain three approvals — the 3C certification, MIIT’s network access license and approval from the China Radio Management agency.
So, there are two approvals remaining before the iPhone 5 can reach the Chinese market. Typically, it takes around 20 days to get approval MIIT and China Radio Management.
China Unicom and China Telecom both said they planned to start selling the iPhone 5 within 3 months. But the approval could mean they’ll start selling it in earlier.
It still hasn’t been announced if China Mobile will carry the iPhone 5. While the 5 is theoretically compatible with China Mobile’s proprietary TD-SCDMA standard, no word has come down stating that China Mobile will sell the device and support it on it’s network. There have been reports that the carrier was preparing a new Nano SIM Card for iPhone 5 users.
Any early arrival of the iPhone 5 would definitely affect the grey market in Hong Kong, where an unlocked 16GB iPhone 5 is currently selling around HKD$8,800 (US$1,135), which allowed scalpers in Hong Kong to earn at least HK$3,000 (US$387) for every two units they resell to the grey market.
