Within days of holding talks with the world’s biggest mobile operator China Mobile, Apple has reportedly asked its Asian suppliers to start manufacturing a low-price iPhone4 for emerging markets.
According to Reuters, the new but smaller phone will come with an 8GB flash drive. At present iPhone4 comes in 16GB and 32GB models.
Reuters said, citing people familiar with the matter, that the flash drive for the 8GB iPhone 4 is being manufactured by a Korean company. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics is one of the Asian companies that sources its flash drives to Apple.
The 8GB version is expected to launch within weeks, close to the date when Apple is expected to launch its iPhone5. Both Apple and Samsung have not commented on the matter so far.
Earlier this week, China Mobile had revealed that the company is in talks with Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Though the company executives did not disclose the subject of the talks, reports suggested that China Mobile could be discussing prospects of introducing an iPhone exclusively based on its network standard.
At present, Apple products do not support the 3G mobile network operating on China Mobile’s home-grown TDSCDMA standard.
The company does not sell iPhones through its retail network. However, China Mobile has 7.44 million iPhone users on its 2G network, China Mobile executives said at a news conference after the release of its first-half earnings.
Though Apple is a leader in the developed smartphone markets, it has not made a significant mark in emerging markets like China and India.
