China Mobile is indeed still in talks with Apple regarding the iPhone, a spokeswoman for the carrier says. The disclosure follows an Apple admission on Monday, stating that a three-year deal with China Unicom is not exclusive, in theory allowing for increased competition. The China Mobile representative has refused to describe the state of negotiations, other than to say that no conclusion has been reached.

A deal between Apple and China Mobile may face greater obstacles than the one involving Unicom. China Mobile has a mobile app store of its own, a potential challenge to sales through iTunes. More critically the company uses a rare 3G technology, TD-SCDMA, which would require a new iPhone model apart from the one developed for Unicom. Apple has generally resisted building phones for multiple network protocols, entirely ignoring the world's second-most popular standard, CDMA. Current iPhones are instead based on GSM, the most prevalent format.