iPhones selling like hotcakes in PRC, NOT!

Like the newspaper headline suggests, the iPhone is not merchandising very well in China. Despite reports that Chinese iPhone carrier China Unicom is satisfied with iPhones so far, new reports indicate that the iPhone is floundering behind The Great Wall. China’s largest online retail merchant, Taobao.com, has apparently sold just five China Unicom iPhones in the past tense twosome weeks. Compared to other markets that see thousands of iPhones sold every month, China Unicom’s iPhone has so far failed to perform.

PRC Unicom sells iPhones directly, so the sum number of iPhones sold recently are probably higher than five iPhones per every two weeks. Still, many troop to the Taobao.com website to bargain gadgets like cellphones in PRC, which makes it a good barometer for overall iPhone gross sales.

The problem? First, there’s the prohibitively high gear cost of purchasing a PRC Unicom iPhone. The 32GB iPhone 3GS costs $1,024 with no contract bridge. You tin pick up the same phone in Hong Kong for $800. Then there’s the fact that iPhones ar smuggled into China and sold on the gray-marketplace all the meter. To make matters worse, these “gray” iPhones are fully functional, devising them more appealing than PRC Unicom’s wireless local area network-less iPhones.

PRC Unicom could really use a cheaper, WiFi-enabled iPhone.

[Via: PCWorld]