Apple is said to have landed the biggest prize in the mobile industry, partnering with China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world, according to alleged company filings.

Various sites this week relayed a report from Chinese-language ccidcom.com, which cited a company filing that allegedly revealed China Mobile has entered an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone 4 at the end of October. China Mobile is the largest mobile carrier in the world with 611 million wireless subscribers, controlling 68 percent of the total wireless market in China.

Reacting to the rumors on Friday, analyst Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets said an iPhone launch with China Mobile could equate to an additional 2 million to 3 million units sold at the end of 2011, or between 8 percent and 12 percent of total iPhone shipments.

Abramsky expects smartphone shipments in China will increase 57 percent to 87 million in calendar year 2012, and he believes nearly 70 percent of those shipments will be on China Mobile’s network alone. He noted that even though the iPhone is not officially available with China Mobile, there are more than 6 million “grey market” handsets from Apple active on the network.

Currently, the iPhone is only available on China Unicom’s network, where it went on sale in 2009. Apple’s handset got off to a slow start, due in part to the grey market for iPhones, as well as the fact that government regulators blocked the inclusion of Wi-Fi on the device in favor of a homegrown standard.

But the iPhone’s popularity in the country improved immensely in 2010, culminating in the launch of the iPhone 4 last September. Strong demand for the handset led to it being sold out for months.

Last month, AppleInsider uncovered an unverified photo purportedly showing an iPhone 4 running on China Mobile’s 3G network. Additionally, Apple COO Tim Cook was reportedly seen visiting the wireless operator’s headquarters last month, fueling rumors that the two companies are nearing a deal.

Apple’s growth in China has been an important piece of the company’s business in recent months, amounting to $9 billion alone this year. That trend is expected to continue upward, with China’s smartphone market estimated to be worth $70 billion total.

Both China Unicom and China Telecom, two of the largest mobile carriers in the world, will sell Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone as soon as this quarter, with the largest prize — China Mobile — to follow, according to a new report.

The details were reportedly revealed in a research note from Chinese market analysis firm Caixin. Both China Telecom Corp. and China Unicom are expected to sell the “new iPhone model… as early as the third quarter of the year,” Bloomberg reported on Friday.

Citing an unidentified person, the report also threw China Mobile into the mix, stating that the massive carrier will not be the first to sell the new iPhone model. The details suggest that Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone could launch in both the U.S. and China at some point this quarter, which concludes in September.

Rumors of Apple brokering a deal with China Mobile have persisted for some time. In June, it was claimed that the carrier would get Apple’s so-called “iPhone 5″ in September.

When comparing wireless carriers, China Mobile is the biggest prize on the planet, in terms of total customers. The largest carrier in the world had 611 million wireless subscribers at the end of May, representing 68 percent of the total China wireless market.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, was rumored in June to have been spotted and even photographed at the corporate headquarters of China Mobile. This week, Cook also explained during his company’s quarterly earnings report how important the nation of China has become to Apple’s bottom line.

In the last quarter, sales in Greater China were up over six times, with revenue of about $8.8 billion a year. Sales in the Asia Pacific region spiked from $1.8 billion in 2010 to $4.7 billion in 2011.

“This has been a substantial opportunity for Apple, and I firmly believe we are just scratching the surface right now,” Cook said. “I believe there is an incredible opportunity for Apple there.”

Even though the iPhone is not officially available on China Mobile’s network, one estimate this year said that 4 million iPhone users are on the massive network. China Unicom is currently the sole carrier that officially offers the iPhone in China.

Reports from earlier this month had suggested that Apple would ink a deal with China Telecom to launch the iPhone on that network in late 2011. One analysis calculated that deal alone as a potential revenue opportunity of $9 billion, given that the mainland Chinese carrier had 105.7 million subscribers as of May.

Just one year after Lenovo Chairman Liu Chuanzhi said Apple CEO Steve Jobs “doesn’t care about China,” Apple is set to overtake its rival on its home turf.

“We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China,” Liu reportedly said last year. “If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.”

It appears Lenovo’s luck has run out, as Apple has, by its own admission, brought its focus to bear on China and seen impressive results: six-fold revenue growth in the region year over year.

Bloomberg spoke to four analysts who each agreed that Apple’s $3.8 billion in revenues in Greater China during the June quarter will easily beat Lenovo’s for the same period.

Among those surveyed by the publication, an estimate of $3 billion in sales in mainland China was the highest of the projections. Even using the highest estimate, analysts said, adding in the revenues from Hong Kong and Taiwan would not be enough for Lenovo to stay ahead of its competitor.

The Beijing and North Carolina-based company, which purchased IBM’s ThinkPad personal computing business in 2005, is due to report earnings next month. During the March quarter, Lenovo made $2.2 billion in consolidated sales in China, which likely doesn’t count Hong Kong or Taiwan, and $4.88 billion in total consolidated sales.

Lenovo responded to the report by saying, “Our results in China have been strong. Lenovo is the number one PC company in China with more than 30 percent market share — more than 3 times our nearest competitor.” While Lenovo’s PC market share in China will likely remain ahead of Apple for some time, it’s the iPhone that has driven the majority of growth for the company.

Asia/Pacific was Apple’s fastest growing region in the June quarter, almost quadrupling year-over-year. Meanwhile, Lenovo’s LePhone, which is designed specifically for Chinese consumers, hasn’t seen the same kind of growth. The company’s mobile division achieved just $187 million in sales last quarter.

Apple has also seen success in China with its iPad 2, which drew sell-out crowds when it launched there in May. Earlier this week, Lenovo launched three new tablets: the $499 IdeaPad Tablet K1 for consumers; the $479 ThinkPad tablet for business users; and the IdeaPad Tablet P1 for home and office use, which is coming in the fourth quarter of this year.

For its part, Apple has said it is just “scratching the surface” of the Chinese market, with the iPhone available on just one of China’s three carriers. Additionally, Apple has just four retail stores in China, though the locations are the best-performing of the company’s brick-and-mortar outlets. The company’s retail successes have even spawned fake Apple Stores with staff claiming to work for Apple.

After reports emerged of “knockoff” Apple Stores in Kunming, China, government officials have launched an investigation into retail stores in the city, even as outraged customers have returned to the store demanding proof that their purchases are genuine.

According to Reuters, industrial and commercial authorities will inspect all electronics shops in the city, which is located in Yunnan province in southwest China. The investigation will look into business licenses, authorized permits on brand use, and the purchase channel of each store, a worker from the department told China’s official Xinhua news agency.

The first reports of the counterfeit Apple Store emerged earlier in the week and quickly drew international attention. BirdAbroad, the blog which first broke the story, had said that employees of one store claimed to work for Apple. That store included staff wearing blue t-shirts and name tags bearing the Apple logo, as well as a lower-quality version of Apple’s iconic winding staircase.

Calls to the store placed by reporters have since confirmed that at least some of the staff are willing to admit that the store is a fake. “”There is no Chinese law that says I can’t decorate my shop the way I want to decorate it,” one employee told Reuters.

After news of the store was picked up by local Chinese media, a number of upset customers returned to the store to complain. “With a store this big, it looks so believable who would have thought it was fake?” said a customer, who had come back to the store to demand a receipt for her purchase of a MacBook Pro and iPhone 3G.

“Where’s my receipt, you promised me my receipt last month!” she shouted at the store’s employees. Staff said that business had been affected by the report.

Credit: BirdAbroad

Some customers, however, were unfazed by the news that the store was not an authorized Apple reseller. “As long as their products are real it’s okay — after all, you enter a store not to look at anything except their products,” said 18-year-old Hu Junkai. “If the products you buy are real why do you care whether the store is a copy?”

Credit: BirdAbroad

Apple operates just four official retail stores in China, though it plans to open a total of 25 in the next few years. The company has focused its efforts on the region, growing its Greater China revenues, which include Hong Kong and Taiwan, to $3.8 billion in the June quarter, a whopping six-fold increase.

Recent reports that China Telecom will begin offering the iPhone by the end of the year have prompted investment firms to crunch the numbers on the deal’s potential revenue opportunity, with one analyst arriving at a figure of $9 billion.

“We are believers,” Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday, referring to a report on Tuesday that claimed China’s third-largest wireless operator will likely launch the iPhone in November.

White went on to note that, despite being dwarfed by competitor China Mobile, China Telecom still has more CDMA subscribers than Verizon Wireless. As of May, the mainland Chinese carrier had 105.7 million wireless subscribers.

According to the analyst, a conservative estimate of the total number of high-end subscribers on China Telecom is 13 to 15 million. That subscriber base would represent a near-term revenue opportunity of $8-9 billion.

However, taking a broader view of the market could signal substantially greater revenue potential. For instance, counting the entirety of the carrier’s current 3G user base of 19.7 million subscribers as potential iPhone customers could represent a $12 billion market opportunity, while China Telecom’s entire subscriber base could bring Apple as much as an estimated $66 billion in revenue.

White has, for some time now, followed developments of potential partnerships between Apple and carriers in China. As early as last year, his sources pointed to a deal between the iPhone maker and China Telecom. Earlier this spring, Chinese media reports emerged indicating that the carrier had been testing the iPhone on its network.

“We continue to view the ramp of China’s mobile Internet as one of the most exciting investment areas in the tech world over the next decade,” the analyst said, adding that Apple could be “one of the biggest beneficiaries” of the boom. White estimates the high-end mobile phone market in China poses a $70 billion revenue opportunity for China.

China Unicom began selling the iPhone in 2009 and got off to a slow start, due in part to a thriving unofficial grey market for iPhones, as well as the fact that government regulators blocked the inclusion of Wi-Fi on the device.

But, the iPhone’s popularity in the country improved last year, culminating in the launch of the iPhone 4 last September, which drew thousands of customers, including a number of scalpers. Strong demand for the handset led to it being sold out for months.

As Apple’s iPhone has become a sought-after handset in the country, China Mobile and China Telecom have grown eager to begin carrying the device. “The reason telecom operators are fighting for the iPhone business is because everybody is trying to grab as many 3G users as possible,” Reuters reported analyst Jane Wang as saying. “The only way to keep costs down is to build up such a user base.”

China Mobile is also expected to begin selling the iPhone later this year, though Apple would have to add support the carrier’s home-grown 3G TD-SCDMA network.

Last week, AppleInsider uncovered an unverified photo purportedly showing an iPhone 4 running on China Mobile’s 3G network. Additionally, Apple COO Tim Cook was reportedly seen visiting the wireless operator’s headquarters last month, fueling rumors that the two companies are nearing a deal.

According to Cook, the iPhone maker is “on a tear” in China, posting 250 percent year over year growth last quarter. The company has forged much of its emerging market strategy in China and hopes to recreate its successes in other countries.

China represents the world’s largest wireless market with 896 million mobile phone users. The bulk of its subscribers elect for pre-paid payment options rather than the subsidized post-paid plans more common in the U.S.

Recent reports have suggested that Apple has developed a cheaper iPhone meant to capitalize on China’s emerging market. According to one survey, 53 percent of Chinese 3G phone buyers would choose the iPhone if its price was lower.

Apple plans to make a big splash this fall with its first retail store in Hong Kong, a sprawling, double-decker outlet that will serve as the latest anchor shop at the high-profile International Finance Center (IFC) Mall.

Located in the city-state’s Central district, the IFC plaza spans 4.7 million square-feet and is home to some 200 high-end retailers and entertainment outlets, financial offices and Hong Kong’s most prestigious hotel and suite — the 55-story Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong.

According to M.I.C. gadget, Apple plans to spend more than $20 million on construction alone, in addition to another $100 million as part of a 10-year lease commitment, on the 15,000-square-foot shop that will occupy two floors in an anchor location on the mall’s far east side.

When it opens this September, the shop is expected to employ more than 300 employees who’ll be tasked with serving an estimate 40,000 customers each and every day — more than 4 times the volume of an average U.S. Apple store. It’s expected to arrive on the heels of a similar store scheduled to open in late August on Shanghai’s famous Nanjing Road, China’s largest yet.

“A recruitment drive is underway but the store seems to be having problems recruiting people,” according to the report. “There is not enough qualified people, and in Hong Kong, all the qualified ones are either rich or getting paid more elsewhere.”

As such, it’s rumored that Apple store employees will be flown in from all over the world to help launch the store around the same time that Apple is rumored to introduce its fifth-generation iPhone.

A leading travel destinations in Asia for mainland tourists, Hong Kong is widely regarded as a shopping oasis, rife with luxury shops that help lure some 80% of mainland tourists from their hometowns for shopping sprees that average $1540 on any given day. More than half of that sum is said to be spent on luxury clothing and electronics goods.

In addition to serving as an optimal travel destination for residence of China’s Guangdong province over Beijing and Shanghai, its also cheaper for residence to purchase Apple goods in Hong Kong given current exchange rates.

For example, M.I.C. gadget notes that Apple’s MacBook Air starts from HK$ 7,588 in Hong Kong but costs considerably more in China, where it starts from RMB 7,998.

The advent of an official retail store in Hong Kong should also help to stifle the region’s flourishing grey market for Apple devices, where vendors routinely mark up prices for iPads and iPhones once Apple’s local authorized resellers run out of stock.

Apple reportedly plans to followup the launch of its shop at the IFC Mall with a second Hong Kong location spanning and even greater 20,000 square feet at Hysan Place in Causeway Bay sometime in 2012.