China Unicom’s chairman believes that the iPhone will be the most popular phone in China, beating out Nokia and RIM for the crown of Bounteous Emperor of the Eastern Phone World.

Interestingly, the iPhone will cost over $1,000 in China and there expectations that gray market sales won’t effect Unicom’s bottom line. There are currently 1 million iPhones sold yearly in China on the gray market.

Considering the dreck Chinese manufacturers are pushing out in the first place, it’s probably not too hard to corner the market in good phones.

via Bloomberg