Beijing - One of China's leading mobile phone companies, China Unicom Corp, on Friday said that it had reached a deal to market US-based Apple Inc's iPhones in China.

"China Unicom and Apple have reached a multi-year agreement for China Unicom to sell the iPhone in China," the Chinese firm said in a brief statement.

"The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009," the statement said.

"We will share more details at that time," it said, referring to an official launch date in October.

In a separate statement to the Hong Kong stock market, China Unicom said its initial agreement with Apple was for three years.

The influential Caijing business magazine on Thursday said the deal with Apple would allow China Unicom to sell iPhones for about 3,000 yuan (439 dollars) with a telecommunications service package requiring another 3,000 yuan in pre-payment.

The iPhones for the Chinese market would not have the wireless internet function normally included with iPhones in other countries, the magazine quoted an "informed source close to the talks" between the two firms as saying.

The government does not allow any mobile phones to have the wireless function in China, which has a highly regulated internet and telecommunications sector.

The move by China Unicom is part of a fierce battle for China's still rapidly growing mobile market with increasing competition expected after the government's issuance in January of licences for third-generation, or 3G, high-speed mobile telephone networks to China Unicom and its two rivals.

China is the largest mobile telephone market in the world with about 690 million accounts.

China Unicom, the number two carrier, has based its 3G networks on the European WCDMA system.

China Mobile, the country's biggest carrier, has a licence for a Chinese TD-SCDMA system, while the smaller China Telecom is branching out from its fixed-line business and competing for 3G customers with a CDMA 2000 system. (dpa)