A deal between Apple and China Unicom, China’s second largest mobile carrier, is so close that the first legal 3G iPhones could hit the Chinese according to a British consulting firm. The carrier should have its WCDMA network ready in May 2009. No word yet on a possible price for the Chinese iPhone 3G. “Apple will not have to modify the 3G iPhone for it to operate on China Unicom’s network while that would not be the case with China Mobile,†said Raymond Yu, an analyst with Ovum.
China Mobile has 415 million customers while China Unicom has 168 million customers, which could mean that by going with China Unicom, Apple would leave quite a bit of money on the table.  It is also estimated that there are 1 million grey market and knock-off 3G iPhones floating around in China, which makes an Apple deal quite attractive.
