According to a report by Shanghai Securities News Apple and China Unicom have entered into a three-year agreement to begin selling the iPhone in China.
The source stated to Shanghai Securities News that China Unicom could begin selling the iPhone around late September and the agreement set a minimum sales threshold of CNY 5 billion ($731 million), effectively guaranteeing Apple sales of one to two million devices per year.
Following this report Reuters posted that China Unicom spokesperson Sophia Tso had said that "Discussions are still ongoing, we have not reached any formal agreement," an Apple spokesperson declined to comment.
China Unicom had 135 million subscribers as of February 2009 and runs a standard GSM/UMTS 3G network – the same as AT&T's network in the United States.