The companies still need to iron out their differences over revenue sharing, Wang Jianzhou told reporters on the sidelines of the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in the Chinese territory of Macau. So far, there's been no word on when exactly the device will debut in Asia next year.

However, Jianzhou told reports that he's not fond of the type of revenue-sharing model that Apple has insisted on elsewhere in the world. "We still think we can maintain the operator-centric model because we have the customers, the end users," he said.

China Mobile has almost 350 million subscribers. However, China Mobile is also a member of Google's Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology and service companies that will develop products based on Google's [url=http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/google_other_unleashing_an_android]Android[/url] mobile phone platform, which will be a competitor for the iPhone, notes [url=http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/139550/china_mobile_may_sell_iphone.html]PC World[/url].