China Unicom may be close to a deal that would see it become the exclusive seller of Apple’s iPhones in China for two years, a Merrill Lynch analyst told Reuters. Cynthia Meng wrote in a research note,” We expect iPhone products to be available in conjunction with the Unicom commercial scale 3G launch in Q4, starting on Oct 1.” Speculation has been rife for two years about which Chinese operator will offer the iPhone, but previous attempts to reach agreeement with Apple have failed.