China, your savior is on his way. Per a WSJ report China’s certification agency recently gave a nod of approval to the iPad 2 3G. The iPad 2 has been a hit in the China market since its May debut, but outside of Hong Kong, only the WiFi model has been available. This approval paves the way for a China Unicom 3G model and enough coin for Apple to make Scrooge McDuck jealous.
Apple is slowly warming to the massive China market. The iPhone launched in the country a few years after its US release and a recent report indicated China Mobile and Apple are in talks to bring the iPhone 4 to its massive 600 million subscriber base. A China Mobile iPhone, or even iPad, would require a different mobile radio as the government-owned telecom operates on a homegrown wireless standard rather than the GSM/CDMA type used elsewhere.
No word on when China Unicom subs will be able to pick up a 3G iPad 2. The word comes just this morning from the WSJ and alongside the news that search giant Baidu and Dell have teamed up for a series of phones and tablets. China, it seems, is the next great oil field, just sitting there, slightly undercover, for gadget makers to tap for untold riches.