China Mobile Asks Apple for a Share of App Store Revenue to Solidify Partnership

Rumors of a partnership between Apple and China Mobile have been swirling about for the past two years. The speculation has increased over the last few months as the gossip mill hinted that the operator had finally inked a deal with the Cupertino company.

And why wouldn’t Apple want to team up with China Mobile? With over 620 million subscribers, they are by far the world’s largest carrier. But according to AllThingsD, a final agreement between the two companies may rely on Apple agreeing on some fairly wild terms…

According to AllThingsD, industry sources say that talks have broken down between China Mobile and the iPhone-maker. Although both companies are reportedly very interested in a partnership, terms and technology seem to have brought negotiations to a stand-still.

Carriers have expressed their disapproval for Apple’s iPhone partnering terms before, but this situation is a bit different. Apparently China Mobile wants a cut of Apple’s App Store revenue to sweeten the partnership deal before it would agree to start carrying the popular smartphone.

Apple has never done this before, and it doesn’t have much of an incentive to start now. Even without an official Apple partnership, the carrier tracks over 10 million iPhones on its network. It’ll be interesting to see who gives in here, but we’re guessing it’s not going to be Tim Cook’s team.