There were doubts at first as to whether the official iPhone launch in China was gaining any traction, as queues outside China Unicom's outlets were surprisingly sparse over the opening weekend.

According to MacWorld, however, the first company to officially release the iPhone and iPhone 3GS in China, China Unicom, has put out a report that over 100,000 units have been moved.

These are the first figures since launch day, when only around 5,000 iPhones were sold. The main issue doesn't seem to be  lack of interest, but rather the availability of wi-fi equipped grey market iPhones and cheaper deals coming out of Hong Kong that mainland China is receiving - a fact bolstered by the apparent success of the Chinese App Store.

China has the largest number of mobile phone users in the world, along with the largest cellular providers, so cracking the Far Eastern market is high on Apple's agenda.