China Unicom Official: Aim To Launch IPhone 4 And IPad Next Month

China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. (CHU) aims to start offering Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPhone 4 and iPad in China next month, a Unicom official who declined to be named said Wednesday.

But Unicom is still ironing out details with Apple and does not have a specific launch date for either product yet, the official said.

Launching the iPad and iPhone 4 in China could boost Apple's sales of the popular devices and help Unicom attract more users for its pricier third-generation data services, which would be compatible with the current models of the iPhone 4 and iPad.

Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu in Beijing said Apple has not announced launch dates for either device in China.

Unicom, which already offers other versions of the iPhone in China, previously said it was in talks with Apple about offering the two new devices.

Unicom last week started offering a model of the iPhone 3GS with Wi-Fi wireless Internet capability, which was missing from the other iPhone models offered by Unicom due to previous government regulations.

Unicom is competing with China's other state-owned mobile carriers to offer attractive handsets and other devices that can use 3G data services.

Apple said in June it had sold 3 million iPads in the 80 days since the U.S. launch of the tablet device. It said it sold over 1.7 million iPhone 4 handsets within three days of the phone's launch in late June.

In Asia, the iPad and iPhone 4 are already available in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

-By Owen Fletcher, Dow Jones Newswires; 8610 8400 7702; owen.fletcher@dowjones.com

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