As a result of its August-signed three-year deal with Apple, China Unicom is set to commence the sale of the popular iPhone in the country in October. The touch-screen handset will be available at a retail price of nearly 5,000 yuan - though the company is yet to disclose details about the models that will be available.

Going by the information forwarded about the service plans that Unicom, one of the leading Chinese mobile operators, would offer, there would be eight different packages for the users to choose from - in the range of between 126 yuan and 886 yuan per month.

Though it has not been specified whether the Chinese users will receive a handset subsidy that would make the iPhone more affordable, the data packages will vary as follows: from 450 MB to 4 GB; 320 to 3,000 minutes of talk time; and 120 to 880 SMS messages.

The Chinese launch of iPhone, which will be Wi-Fi-less, coincides with Unicom's planned rollout of 3G services in 335 cities by the year-end.

As per the availability of the iPhone, Unicom said that the handset will be available at Apple retail outlets; as well as through China Unicom network of stores and key independent retailers.

In addition, the company said that it intends developing an online application store based on the lines of the App Store.