HONG KONG  - China Mobile, the world’s biggest telecom carrier by subscribers, said on Wednesday it is negotiating with Apple Inc to carry the popular iPhone in China.

China Mobile is the only Chinese operator that does not officially carry the iPhone because its homegrown 3G technology is not supported by the chips used in current iPhone models.

Production is set to begin next month for the screens, which measure at least 4 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S, the latest phone from Apple, the people said.

The move suggests that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is trying to make its popular smartphone more appealing amid intensifying competition from rival Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea. Samsung, which became the world’s biggest cell phone maker in the first quarter, recently unveiled its new flagship smartphone with a 4.8-inch display, one of the largest smartphone screens.

Another day, another report on Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone 5, this time from Mac blog iLounge, which claims via a “reliable source” to have confirmed details of a thinner, longer smartphone sporting scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 2 on the front, a metal panel on the back and a roughly 4-inch screen, larger than the 3.5-inch screen found on the current edition of the iPhone.

When Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, spoke about the state of the wireless industry at a conference this week, he shared some surprisingly frank comments about the iPhone. In particular, he said that he wished the company had never offered an unlimited data plan for the device and that he loses sleep over free texting services like Apple’s iMessage.

If AT&T hadn’t offered unlimited data, it would have been able to get people who used more data to pay up for it, as opposed to having the light data users subsidize the heavy ones, he said.

A report from Apple-focused technology blog iLounge claims the next-generation iPhone will arrive this fall with an elongated glass-bodied design, a redesigned Dock connector and a 4” or bigger display.

While iLounge has correctly reported on unannounced i-device features in the past, the latest set of rumors should definitely be taken with a fist-full of salt.

Not long after the iPhone came out, skeptics questioned how much appeal the costly device and related wireless service would have in countries like China with lower income levels. On Tuesday, Apple provided the answer: A lot.

The company reported Tuesday that soaring sales of the iPhone, especially in China, helped Apple nearly double its profit in the company’s fiscal second quarter.