But the scale of the threat was highlighted earlier this week when the chairman of China Mobile - the world's largest telecomcarrier - said his firm was now more concerned about the challenge posed by Microsoft's Skype and Tencent's WeChat services than it was about competition from China's rival mobile networks.
Meanwhile, the carrier said it's proposed Deutsche Telecom-backed merger with T-Mobile is moving along swimmingly with a definitive proposal filed yesterday.
While the arrival of the iPhone on China Mobile could potentially be a huge blow to China Telecom, it is a good sign that the carrier is not banking on the popular smartphone alone to drive 3G adoption.
With close to 670 million subscribers, China Mobile is the largest wireless carrier in the world and has almost six times as many subscribers as China Telecom.