China Unicom starts gaining steam, now up to 300,000 iPhones sold

According to Dan Butterfield at iPhonAsia, China Unicom has passed the 300,000 mark on iPhones in China.   The milestone is notable because just three weeks ago, Unicom had only sold 100,000 and that mark was reached in 40 days.  Even that was a significant increase over its dismal start on the mainland.

So why the sudden increase in iPhone purchases in China?  Unicom has put on a roadshow:

The 46-city tour kicked off in Beijing earlier this week and is designed to educate prospective buyers. China Unicom is renting out conference centers and they have trained up staff to deliver interactive demos of many fun and practical uses of iPhone. There will be six live presentation sessions covering different iPhone features/functions. One of the objectives of the roadshow campaign is to raise awareness of how much can be done via an iPhone and its virtually unlimited number of apps

The news that China Unicom is starting to pick up customers at a good clip is certainly refreshing for Apple, as they've had very high hopes for the country of 1.3 Billion.  Sales should also see an increase when Apple introduces Wifi-enabled models sometime in 2010.