China's Unicom and Apple have reportedly reached an agreement to offer a specially-built version of the iPhone in China, possibly within a few months. A report released July 17th by the China Business network indicates Hon Hai/Foxconn (the world’s largest manufacturer of electronics components and Apple’s long-time partner) helped to get this deal completed. Hon Hai also known by the name Foxconn will build a special version of the iPhone without Wi-Fi integrated allowing Apple to bypass Beijing's restrictions on handsets that support high speed internet access.

In a mobile Q&A from iPhonAsia editor Dan Butterfield says:

"I believe we are at the beginning stages of a mobile revolution"

“There are over 700 million wireless consumers in China. The majority are youthful, status conscious, and they want to own cool smartphones loaded with the latest apps/games and mobile technologies that allow them to interact with one another.

“While incomes are lower in China compared to western markets, China still has tremendous consuming power. There are an estimated 340,000 millionaires in China and there is also a growing middle-class. An estimated 290 million Chinese households can be classified as middle-class with monthly incomes ranging from 5,000 CNY to 15,000 CNY ($732 to $2,196 USD). Chinese tend to save a relatively high share of their monthly take home pay. Rainy day savings can sometimes be spent on more expensive items, particularly if the product has status and is used every day … think iPhone.

“All of this adds up to a tremendous potential market for Apple’s iPhone. Using conservative estimates, I believe Apple can capture a full 2% share of the wireless market in China within the first 12 months of an official iPhone launch. That’s 14 million iPhones and perhaps another 2 million or so coming via grey-market iPhone sales.”