Apple will sell up to 40 million iPhones through China Mobile and China Telecom in 2013

Morgan Stanley forecasts Apple will sell as many as 40 million iPhones during the next calendar year, after it partners with both China Telecom and China Mobile sometime next year.

This means the iPhone, Apple’s best selling device, will be available through all three Chinese carriers. In other words, the company’s income will see huge growth.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty gave an insider’s look at Morgan Stanley’s forecast regarding the iPhone and the potential of the Chinese market.

She said Apple can reach only a limited number of high-end Chinese subscribers through its current partnership with China Unicom. She indicates 10% of the total 150 million subscribers, which means a total of 15 million new iPhone owners.

However, China has three major wireless carriers Apple needs to partner with in order to grab a significant global market share.

China mobile, the world’s largest wireless carrier, holds the biggest number of subscribers—an estimated 120 million customers.

Huberty believes Apple can sell about 26 million iPhones in China in its first year after entering the country, but that this will increase very rapidly to 40 million, including the potential high-end users of all three wireless carriers in China.

An interesting point of Huberty’s note (sent out to investors late Sunday) is that Apple’s next generation device will be compatible with China Mobile’s 4G TD-LTE network, which confirms the rumors circulating around the blogosphere.

Another rumor embraced by Huberty is that the iPhone will feature a quad-mode baseband chip from Qualcomm, although she isn’t 100% sure about this one.

Looking at the successful launch of the iPhone through China Unicom, Huberty concludes that Apple is likely to quickly grab the same 20% of high-end users among China Mobile customers, which raises her estimates to 36 million iPhones to be sold in China alone during 2013.

Although the iPhone has not been officially launched in China, there were 10 million iPhones recorded on China Mobile’s network last year in October.

If Apple reaches the Morgan Stanley analyst‘s forecast, 2012 and 2013 will bring the Cupertino company a significant share of the global Smartphone market.

via: AppleInsider