It seems that Apple has not yest convinced China Mobile to sell iPhones in the world's largest market, according to a Reuters report. Xi Guohua, the chairman of the world's largest mobile phone carrier, said on Wednesday that his company had no announcement to make on any deal to carry Apple's smartphones.

A deal with China Mobile could potentially be worth billions of dollars in revenue for Apple. Up to 759 million potential new China Mobile customers could gain access to iPhones, generating up to $3 billion in extra 2014 revenue.

There are currently some tens of million of people who are using iPhones on China Mobile's network, but they can only use it on 2G. As the new 4G network rolls out then people will be able to use the latest Apple models, the 5c and 5s, on the network as they do indeed support TD-LTE, the technical standard that network is using. However, without a deal between Apple and China Mobile no one can use an iPhone on the 3G parts of the network.