China Mobile said it is still negotiating with Apple over an iPhone distribution deal and that an earlier Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that an agreement had already been signed was incorrect.

The latest twist in the on-going China Mobile and Apple saga comes from news agency AFP.

“Talks between China Mobile and Apple on cooperation are still going on and we currently do not have anything to announce,” Rainie Lei, a China Mobile spokesperson, told AFP.

The WSJ, citing “a person familiar with the situation”, had said the deal had been clinched, and that a launch date “around the time of an 18 December China Mobile conference in Guangzhou” was likely.

China Mobile was recently awarded a commercial TD-LTE licence, which inevitably stoked speculation that Apple was drawing close to signing an iPhone deal with the biggest mobile operator in the world.