Just in time for Christmas, the iPhone 4S has been approved for sale. According to the Beijing Morning Post, China Unicom has been given permission to start selling the iPhone on the mainland. A permit was issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to allow the second largest cell phone carrier in the world to begin selling the device as early as this month.

The phone will debut via China Unicom operating on the WCDMA band. Other phone users, particularly those using China Telecom and those operating on the CDMA2000 band, will have to wait for a later release.

When it comes to Apple or China Unicom, no concrete release date has been made public yet, however many experts are anticipating the phone will available within days as the Christmas season and Chinese New Year are quickly approaching.

The iPhone 4S has been available throughout much of the rest of the world since October. The pre-order session in Hong Kong in November lasted only ten minutes before all pre-orders were sold out. Members of the local riot police were brought out to quell scalping at the event. No doubt, the release of the iPhone 4S in China will be a big boost for 4Q Apple sales.


See More: iPhone 4S Will Arrive in China For Christmas