At least this is what the research company In-Stat discovered by looking at data reported by China Mobile, the biggest country’s mobile operator.

Of course, each of the 400,000 iPhones is unlocked and we can presume that the phones were brought in the country by people who bought them in the US.

Also, In-Stat said that apparently the iPhone costs in China somewhere around $533, which is less than the initial price tag of $599, but more than the current price of $399.

In-Stat’s analysts discovered that the Chinese users are particularly interested by the entertainment purposes of the iPhone such as listening music, making pictures or chatting with their friends.

400,000 units is more than Apple sold in Europe, according to the estimations, but it seems like a drop in the ocean as In-Stat estimates that are 28 million potential clients who are ready to buy an iPhone.

But for Apple, the huge number of iPhones already available in China is not such good news. Although there is no official confirmation, it is widely believed that Apple cashes in a certain amount of money for each iPhone sold by the mobile operators and there are speculations that based on certain agreements the company receives in addition a share of the revenues generated by the iPhone. That means that from Apple’s point of view, all the 400,000 iPhones could be counted as losses.

However, Apple, who is decided to reach the 10 million units milestone until the end of 2008, is preparing the official launch of iPhone in Asia. Unfortunately, the talks between Apple and China Mobile reportedly have stopped as the Chinese weren’t anything but thrilled to pay Apple for each iPhone sold. For Japan, apparently, Apple is negotiating a partnership with NTT DoCoMo, but so far nothing is confirmed.

As Apple announced last month, at the end of 2007, there were 3,7 million iPhone sold worldwide.