苹果CEO蒂姆•库克一度认为中国“具有无限机遇”，然而iPhone在中国市场中地位却出现了下滑。

    路透社（Reuters）于上周五发布的一篇报告中，有一个极具价值的消息。

    李建业（音译）写道：“第三季度，华为（Huawei）超越苹果（Apple），成为中国市场排名第三的智能手机厂商。”

    路透社报道称，苹果现在落后于诺基亚（Nokia）、三星（Samsung）以及华为这三家更“灵活”、更“善于变通”的公司，但该报道未透露其消息来源，也没有说明各公司具体的市场份额。

    我不认为诺基亚“灵活”，但未能与全球最大的移动运营商——中国移动（China Mobile，拥有6亿用户）达成交易确实令苹果受挫。

    公司首席执行官蒂姆•库克在苹果最近一次收益电话会议中曾经被问及中国市场，当时他惊叹苹果在中国市场具有无限机遇：

    库克说：“在我一生中，还从没见过哪个国家有那么多步入中产阶层的人士渴望购买苹果制造的产品……在这里前途无量。”

    库克谈到中国迅速成为苹果第二大收入来源国。他还谈到了该公司已在中国进行的投资。谈到苹果去年推出的中文在线商店。谈到已在大中华区开设6家门店，并计划再开设几十家。他还谈到苹果的200家单品牌专卖店以及7,000个销售点。

    但是，库克只字未提苹果为何迟迟没有动手生产能在中国移动专有的TD-SCDMA网络运行的iPhone，从而打开一个规模将近威瑞森（Verizon）加美国电话电报公司（AT&T）三倍大小的市场。

    译者：项航

    There's a nugget of unanchored news in a report Reuters filed Friday.

    "In the third quarter," wrote Lee Chyen Yee, "Huawei overtook Apple as the No.3 smartphone vendor in China."

    Without identifying its source or specifying market shares, Reuters reported that Apple (AAPL) now trails Nokia (NOK), Samsung and Huawei, companies it characterized as more "nimble" and "flexible" than Apple.

    "Nimble" is not what I would call Nokia, but it's true that Apple's failure to strike a deal with China Mobile (CHL), the world's largest mobile carrier (600 million subscribers), has hurt it.

    When asked about China during Apple's most recent earnings call, CEO Tim Cook marveled at the scope of Apple's opportunity:

    "In my lifetime," he said, "I've never seen a country with as many people rising into the middle class that aspire to buy products that Apple makes... The sky is the limit there."

    He talked about how quickly China has risen to No.2 in Apple's list of top revenue-producing countries. He talked about the investments the company has made in China. About the Chinese language online store it launched last year. About the six stores it opened in Greater China and the dozens more it wants to build. About its 200 mono-branded stores and its 7,000 points of sales.

    But not one word about why Apple decided not to build an iPhone that could run on China Mobile's proprietary TD-SCDMA network -- and by so doing crack open an addressable market nearly three times the size of Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) combined.