UPDATE: China Unicom: Sold 100,000 Apple iPhones Since Launch

Sales of Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhones in China appear to have picked up after a sluggish start, with the U.S. company's Chinese partner saying it has sold more than 100,000 of the iconic smartphone since its official launch Oct. 30.

The sales figure, reported by China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. (CHU) on Thursday, still puts iPhone sales in China--the world's largest wireless market by subscriber accounts--well behind other big markets. In the U.S., Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours after it first went on sale there in 2007.

Thursday's number suggests a pickup from the device's first days in China. Unicom said Nov. 3 it had sold only about 5,000 iPhones since the launch four days earlier. Still, analysts said Thursday's number was underwhelming.

"iPhone sales have been disappointing," said Paul Wuh, an analyst covering China Unicom for Samsung Securities. "For China Unicom, with 144 million subscribers, 100,000 iPhone users aren't going to do anything for their revenue."

One factor holding the iPhone back in China is its relatively high price. Apple and Unicom charge $730 to $1,020 for the iPhone, not including discounts on service, making it more expensive than "gray market" iPhones brought into the country through Hong Kong. There are up to 2 million such gray market iPhones in China, Wuh estimates. In addition, the Wi-Fi Internet function is disabled on Unicom's iPhones to comply with Chinese government rules.

From Unicom's perspective, however, the official sales numbers may not tell the whole story. Wuh said users of gray market iPhones are likely switching to China Unicom and running them on the carrier's network, the only one in China that is compatible with the iPhone's 3G functions.

China Unicom said last month it aimed to increase the number of its third-generation mobile users by more than 1 million a month. At the end of October, it had just over 1 million 3G users.

Unicom is the country's second-largest mobile carrier behind China Mobile, which had 513.5 million users at the end of October. China Mobile has repeatedly said it remains in talks with Apple on offering the iPhone, suggesting Unicom may eventually face competition selling it in China.

-By Aaron Back, Dow Jones Newswires; (8610) 6588-5848; aaron.back@dowjones.com

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