“Liu Min stands a few feet from an Apple Inc. store in Beijing hawking something that can’t be bought inside: the new iPhone 6,” Bloomberg News reports. “While the device debuts today in the U.S., Hong Kong, Japan and Australia, there is no release date set for the world’s biggest smartphone market. That creates an opportunity for Liu, who promises two-day delivery of a 16-gigabyte iPhone 6 for 8,000 yuan ($1,303) — almost double the price on Apple’s Hong Kong website.”
“Consumers typically waited at least three months for Apple to start selling new iPhones in China, triggering a flood of devices into the country’s black market. As many as 5 million may be smuggled into China before the new models are officially available, said Neil Shah, Mumbai-based research director for devices at Counterpoint Research,” Bloomberg News reports. “The Apple delay stems from the fact that the new iPhones have cleared just two of three regulatory steps, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. The devices still need network access licenses from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Xinhua said.”
“It’s not just in mainland China where people are looking to profit from the delay. At the computer-store complex in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district, vendors offer the gold iPhone 6 Plus for between HK$18,000 [US$2,322] and HK$28,000 [US$3,612],” Bloomberg News reports. “‘Many, many people are asking — from mainland, from Hong Kong,’ said Chen Xiaoming, a 29-year-old worker at the ‘Well Go Telecom’ store.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
About 15 hours til my dream iPhone arrives. The iPhone I’ve wanted for four years. I haven’t felt like this since I was a kid leaving milk and cookies on the dining room table for Santa.
How many android manufacturers get this sort of response for a new model ? Hmmm ?
Black market iPhones smuggled in and people are willing to pay multiple times the rec-retail-price 😂😂😂
F##k google and all who sail on her 😡
I noticed tons of asians lined up in the vid around New Yorks flagship store. Also in Minnesota they have lined up. I think they are exporting these to China
Well, ATT sent me an update today saying that the shipping estimate for my iP6+ 128MB gold is *still* between Oct 2 and 13. Ah, well…
My 6+ was originally scheduled to deliver between Oct 1-6.
A few hours ago I got an email from Apple saying it had shipped 🙂
Got my 6. Currently restoring from a full iPhone 5s backup on iTunes. So glad I got a 6 not a 6+. That thing is ginormous when seen in the flesh. While I’m sure the big screen would’ve been great the 2% of the time I’m actually looking at it, the other 98% of the time when I’m simply carrying it while walking, running, skiing, sailing, shopping or whatever, it would have been a pain in the ass. You may think differently but I’m tipping a lot of returns and a lot showing up on eBay when people realise just how big and cumbersome the 6+ is to carry 24/7. Maybe in a suit Jacket pocket or a woman’s purse it’d be OK, but in slim jeans, shorts or sports clothing forget it. The other thing is just how much bigger the real estate is on the 6 over the 5s, I didn’t realise it would be so much bigger, yet lighter and thinner. Very happy. Oh, it’s fast too!
China. Black Market. Same thing.