It has only been a few months when Apple Inc. made the shocking revelation about its 1.7 million iPhones gone missing from its U.S Service provider AT&T’s activation process. Since then, it has been a lot of speculations doing the rounds about the whereabouts of those iPhones.

Apple in its fourth fiscal quarter had announced of 3.75 million iPhones being sold till December. The news created quite a stir in the technology market as it was a representation of the breakthrough success of the marvellous innovation from Apple Inc. But soon followed the news that AT&T has activated only 2 million of the 3.75 million iPhones raising alarm about the remaining 1.7 million.

According to Apple and AT&T, the buyers of new iPhones usually activate them withn 3 days; which did not happen for the missing 1.7 million. It was expected that the large number of iPhones which were sold prior to Christmas (and meant to be Christmas presents), will be activated. But they went untraceable.

Apple Inc. has officially launced iPhones in the United States and the European market on revenue sharing deals with a local service provider; and is awaiting release this year in a few Asian countries, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, etc. However, there are reports of iPhones already been a rage in many Asian countries like Thailand, China, India to name a few; and Australia, Columbia, South America, New Zealand and Russia among many others.

Recently, market research company In-Stat in its report has revealed that almost 400,000 unlocked iPhones have found they way into China. China, the most populous country in the world is already awaiting a 2008 release of Apple iPhone. However, there were reports of failed talks between Apple and the local service provider in China – China Mobile.

Now, the In=Stat report indicates that China Mobile has apparently 400,000 users on their cell network by the end of 2007. This is definitely a connecting evidence of a huge section of the 1.7 million ‘missing’ iPhones shipped into the Chinese markets. These iPhones are then unlocked and China Mobile was quick to act as the service provider.