Apple is missing out on an opportunity to further expand in China, the Financial Times reported late on Sunday, citing Lenovo's Chairman Liu Chuanzhi.

We are lucky Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn't care about China, Liu was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The Chinese PC company's LePhone is also placed well to compete with Apple's iPhone in China because it is customized for Chinese users, the newspaper cited Liu as saying.

China Unicom is the only mobile operator that sells the iPhone in China, although rivals such as China Mobile have previously said that they are interested in bringing the smartphone into the country.

Some 47 percent of Lenovo's sales came from China in 2009, and it remains the company's most profitable sector as it continues to bleed in developed markets that were formerly IBM strongholds.

Officials from Lenovo and Apple were not immediately available for comment.

(Writing by Kelvin Soh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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