Unicom iPhone 4 first day sales of 40,000 in China

According to China Unicom news, as of 25th of this month, China Unicom has over 40,000 users for the iPhone4 network access procedures.

Sales of the handset are expected to outpace its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS, which launched last November with disappointing results. In contrast to other countries which reportedly sold millions of units within 24 hours, sales of the 3GS in China reached a disappointing 5,000 units within three days. These lagging sales resulted from an extraordinarily high price tag ($1,025) and the lack of WiFi, which Apple crippled to meet government mandates requiring devices with WiFi to support the WAPI standard.

It helps that this iPhone is not crippled like last year's model, which at the request of the Chinese government was manufactured without a Wi-Fi receiver. The price is a little better too. A contract-free 32GB iPhone 3GS sold for $1,033 last year. This year's 32GB iPhone 4 retails for 5,999 yuan ($905) without a contract. The 16GB model goes for 4,999 yuan ($754).