China Unicom and Apple have jointly announced that the two parties have reached a three-year agreement to sell Apple's iPhone handsets in China.

China Unicom announced the information in its semi-annual performance report published today and stated the iPhone handsets will be formally put into the Chinese market in the fourth quarter of 2009. The company said more details about the cooperation will be revealed at the appropriate time.

According to China Unicom's semi-annual report ended June 30, 2009, the company's net profit decreased by 45.28% year-on-year to CNY6.616 billion in the first six months of 2009. Its net profit was CNY12.09 billion during the same period of 2008.