China Mobile (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nokia exploited Apple‘s Achilles’ heel of subsidies to beat Apple in China.

China Mobile Limited (CHL) is the largest cellular provider in the world by number of subscribers. At the end of October it had 703 million subscribers including 79.3 million 3G users.

China Mobile has been in desperate need for a flagship high end smart phone. Apple has been negotiating with China Mobile to make iPhone its flagship phone. Apple bulls have been counting on the big subscriber base of China Mobile to fuel further iPhone growth in China.

In a surprise move, China Mobile chose Lumia 920T, a phone based on Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone 8 over iPhone 5.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/07/how-nokia-beat-apple-in-china/