MACAU (Bloomberg) - Apple Inc. rose the most in more than a year in Nasdaq trading after China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest wireless operator, said it is in talks to sell the iPhone.

Apple, rebounding after four days of declines, advanced 11 percent, the most since July 2006. An agreement would give Apple access to a market with 523 million subscribers, more than the combined population of the European Union.

"It would be a big boost for Apple to be in China," said Tiffany Feng, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong who suggests buying China Mobile shares. The company's iPhone, which came out in the US in June, blends the iPod media player with a mobile phone.

The iPhone's music-download and Web-surfing capabilities may help China Mobile lure higher-income users, after the carrier added record customers in September by focusing on rural areas and cutting prices. The carrier already has an agreement to sell Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry handsets.

"Our customers like this kind of fashionable product," Chairman Wang Jianzhou said at a conference in Macau today, referring to the $399 handset made by Cupertino, California-based Apple. "The biggest issue is the business model."

Jill Tan, an Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong, declined to comment. The company plans to begin selling the iPhone in Asia next year, she said.

Apple added $16.20 to $169.96 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has doubled this year.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has tied the device to partnerships with mobile-phone companies in the US, UK, Germany and France. Apple gets an undisclosed cut of the monthly fees the carriers charge, and in return they have exclusive rights to sell iPhone service contracts.

Analysts have estimated that AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. phone company, pays Apple $10 to $20 a month for each subscriber. AT&T's monthly fees are $60 to $220, and the San Antonio-based company said last month it had activated 1.1 million of the 1.4 million iPhones sold since June.

Last week, Apple began selling the iPhone through partners in the U.K. and Germany. The device goes on sale in France this month. Jobs aims to capture one percent of global mobile-phone sales next year, equal to about 10 million handsets.

China Mobile would probably limit sales of the iPhone to customers who subscribe for services that provide Web access over its mobile-phone network, Ms. Feng said. China Mobile added 6.1 million customers in September for a total of 349.7 million.

"China Mobile wants to sell the iPhone and BlackBerry handsets for the same reason, and that's to get people to spend more money," Ms. Feng said.

China Mobile fell 0.4 percent in Hong Kong today to HK$128.90 at the end of trading. The stock has almost doubled this year, compared with a 39 percent gain for the city's benchmark Hang Seng Index.