During Apple's latest Financial Conference Call last month Cook had a lot to report on regarding Greater China. For instance, the iPhone experienced 71% year-over-year growth with 16.8 Billion worth of sales; Mac sales in China were up a whopping 31% and the App Store in China had grown 100%. The key to China thus far has been Apple's telecom partnerships with China Mobile being the most important. Cook said that he saw iPhone sales momentum going into the next quarter and now we're getting a peek at one of the driving forces behind the iPhone's momentum.

By the end of 2014, China gained almost 100 million LTE subscriptions in the first year of full LTE commercialization, demonstrating an accelerating growth momentum. ABI Research further states in their report that "Thanks to the first-mover advantages, China Mobile seized almost 90% share of the total LTE market in China." That kind of strength from Apple's wireless partner is likely one of the key driving forces behind the momentum of Apple's iPhone 6 and 6-Plus in China.  

Marina Lu, Research Analyst at ABI Research noted in the report that "Since the other two China mobile operators—China Unicom and China Telecom—were granted preferred FDD-LTE licenses in March 2015, it is expected that China will overtake the United States to become the largest 4G market in the world, accumulating 500 million LTE subscriptions, or 36.5% of the domestic cellular subscriptions in 2015."

On Monday, IDC reported that Apple was the number smartphone vendor in China in Q1 2015

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