China's First Financial Daily is reporting that the release date is set for November 28. (Note that BrightWire News also is reporting this date, citing a telecommunications "expert," Yang Tao, who appears in the First Financial Daily report).
That would come about two months after the rumored global launch. The reason: the next-gen iPhone has not completed the verification process required by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the report said.
This follows a Nikkei report pegging the release date in Japan for September 20 -- 10 days after
the US announcement.
The Chinese report also claims that the Qualcomm chips in the new iPhone will support China Mobile's telecommunications network standard.
China Mobile is the largest carrier in the largest smartphone market in the world.
A separate report earlier this week said that Hon Hai (aka Foxconn) will start manufacturing in August a version of the iPhone 5C supporting the TDD-LTE used by China Mobile.
And note that there has been ongoing speculation about which upcoming iPhone will support which standard in China. Currently, the iPhone 5 is incompatible with China's TD-SCDMAstandard.
The First Financial report claims the new iPhones will be compatible with TD-SCDMA.