Windows Phone may now support Chinese, and even have a Chinese manufacturing partner, but those don’t change the fact that the entire platform has yet to officially launch in China. While we had been initially expecting that to happen sometime before the end of this year, it looks like those plans have been slid-back slightly. A new industry rumor suggests the arrangements for that launch are really starting to come together, including Microsoft’s choice of Chinese retailer Suning as its sales partner.

While Microsoft continues to struggle to convince customers already familiar with the likes of iOS and Android to try something different, it’s the markets the company has yet to tap into at all that may prove the greatest opportunity for the platform to gain new users. That’s not to say there won’t be an uphill battle to face, but the size of the Chinese mobile market alone is just too good for a company to pass up.

Specific details regarding just how or when this launch might begin aren’t available; we can’t even narrow it down to one quarter or another. With any luck, we’ll hear some more as 2012 gets underway.

Source: Penn-Olson

Via: WMPoweruser