China is one of the most prosperous markets or mobile phone companies, but also one of the trickiest to crack. It's taken Apple long time to partner with a local distributor, but the deal was finally sealed with China Unicom, with the first official iPhone sales due to roll out across the country this week.

PCWorld is also reporting that China Unicom is looking to bring a lot of the country's unofficial iPhone users into its contracts through the allure of 3G connectivity, the only Chinese provider to offer this service.

Grey market iPhones are apparently widely available, with many users operating the device through a SIM contract with the world's largest mobile phone provider, China Mobile.

Although these devices do not have wi-fi disabled, as the official China Unicom unit has (to meet Chinese government regulations), neither do they have access to a 3G network, which the official distributor is hoping such users will find appealing.

It's likely that China Unicom will make a big push in this direction, as it's contract with Apple is not an exclusive one. China Mobile is also currently in talks to distribute the iPhone, and some electronics retailers are also looking at providing the device sim free.