Still, Wang Jianzhou admitted that both companies intend to cooperate, but it seems like details about the business models and commercialization have prevented the start of the formal talks.

In fact, Wang Jianzhou did not say anything new. Last month, Reuters reported that Wang Jianzhou expressed his interest to start the talks with Apple regarding the iPhone distribution.

"We have not yet officially begun talks with Apple over the iPhone problem," China Mobile Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou told reporters at the time

"As long as our customers want this kind of product, we will keep all options open," he added.

China Mobile Communications Corporation, also known as China Mobile or CMCC, represents the largest mobile phone operator from China, as well the largest mobile phone operator in the world if ranked by the number of subscribers, which is about 349.66 million. China Mobile is owned by the People’s Republic of China government and it has more than 119,000 employees.

According to Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile subscribers currently totaled more than 380 million, nearly 30 percent of the country's total population, Xinhua noted.

Last year there were rumors that Apple’s officials tried to nail a deal with China Mobile, but nothing was officially confirmed.

Although iPhone is not officially available in China, a report released by In-Stat in February revealed that there were already nearly 400,000 unlocked iPhones in China at the end of 2007.

“According to China Mobile, the biggest wireless carrier, in China there were about 400,000 cracked iPhones using its cellular network service at the end of 2007, representing one out of every 10 iPhone shipments announced officially by Apple. The figure surprised us as it is fourfold of that we estimated before,” wrote Anty Zheng, Content Manager In-Stat China, in a report released on February 15.