Apple's chief operating officer Tim Cook announced that an agreement with China Unicom would be signed at the end of this summer to that the company's iPhone could be sold in China from this autumn. This is the first formal response from Apple to repeated rumors of such a move.

According to available information, Apple's senior managers arrived in Beijing for the negotiations with China Unicom on August 4. It is said that China Unicom will launch two types of iPhones-3G and 3GS.

China Unicom declined comment, saying the negotiations with Apple were still ongoing, but Chen Yongdong, a telecommunications expert, said an appropriate revenue-sharing model still had to be figured out.

For more information, please consult the Chinese coverage here:

http://www.bbtnews.com.cn/mainland/channel/75009.shtml

(China.org.cn by Li Xiaohua August 7, 2009)