The iPhone may be popular in the west, but it’s not so irresistible in the east. When mobile operator China Unicom launched Apple’s iPhone in Beijing last October 30 the sales were not so impressive in comparison with the success of the iPhone in New York in 2007 and in Hong Kong and Tokyo only last year.

The reasons, according to experts are: the high price, disabled WiFi as well as all the other options also out in the market for nearly 720 million users.

Unicom said last week that they were able to sell 5,000 units in the first weekend. No updated figures were released.

Bertram Lai, a Hong Kong-based analyst with CIMB-GK Securities told AFP that “The introduction of a more expensive, less usable iPhone with fewer functions is not going to be very exciting for the market.”

Unicom has rolled out contract deals that somehow keep the iPhone price relatively low, but it still costs more than 500 dollars– an amount that’s a lot more than what the average consumer can shell out for a phone.

(via AFP)