“The long lines of people eager to get their hands on Apple Inc.’s latest iPhones took on a new flavor this year, as queues swelled with tourists joining in the revelry to buy handsets that aren’t yet available back home,” Tim Higgins, Doni Bloomfield and Cornelius Rahn report for Bloomberg.
“Russians standing in line in Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm sang ‘Katyusha’ and drank vodka, while Brazilians traveled halfway across the world to Sydney to pick up the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models,” Higgins, Bloomfield and Rahn report. “Mandarin, Vietnamese and Spanish were being spoken outside San Francisco’s Apple Store.”
“The globetrotting shoppers lining up on the first day of iPhone sales in Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, France, U.K., Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. were there because they won’t be able to buy the new bigger-screen smartphones until Sept. 26 at the earliest in the next batch of countries,” Higgins, Bloomfield and Rahn report. “Last year, was the first — and so far only — time that Apple’s phones were available in China on the same day as the global debut. Previously, the typical three-month lag before the iPhone’s debut in China helped fuel smuggling of about 20 million iPhones into China annually, according to Jun Zhang, head of China equities research at Rosenblatt Securities Inc. in San Francisco. As many as 5 million iPhones may be smuggled into China before the new models are officially available, according to Neil Shah, Mumbai-based research director for devices at Counterpoint Research.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
iPhone 6/Plus hit with ‘unprecedented demand’ as analysts attempt to gauge first-weekend sales – September 19, 2014
Apple iPhone 6/Plus sales primed to set new all-time smartphone record – if supply allows – September 19, 2014
CNN: Apple’s iPhone 6 goes on sale, and the lines are insane; iPhone 6 passes first public drop test – September 19, 2014
Citigroup: Demand is off the charts for Apple’s 64-bit Phone 6/Plus – September 19, 2014
iPhone 6/Plus queues far larger than for iPhone 5/5s launches – September 19, 2014
Mother of all upgrades: Huge crowds greet Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus – September 19, 2014
Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus debuts worldwide to long lines – September 19, 2014
Gold iPhone 6 Plus price hits $3,600 in China as delay fuels black market – September 18, 2014
The lines have become something dark. I remember when they were fun back in the day. Tech weenies and Apple fans hanging out talking tech. This however is something else. Some people always gotta ruin it for everyone else.
Awesome, Dude. Worthy of one of the TV news magazine shows.
Agreed. But most likely the PC media today will not go anywhere near it.
Am I the only one to remember the agenda driven hit-piece by the Neistat bros about iPod batteries only lasting 12 months? This is more of the same. The racist overtone is nasty here.
Also, buying a phone to resell is not a black market transaction…which is illegal.
OMG. I guess Apple’s becoming too mainstream? Perish the thought! 🙂 So much for any disingenuous hack tech writer’s idea of Apple being “moribund.”
What I wouldn’t give to see those aghast & crestfallen Samsung Executive Suite faces, also realizing they have no place to go.
This just out! (well, actually made up on the spot like all the other rumours).
The iPhone 7 will have the ear sound opening on the top and will be easier to not block off with your ear folds. The top bezel will be nearly the same size as the side bezels and the home button will disappear and have the same pressable display tech as the Watch. Apple will also make the battery bigger and incorporate a low speed inductive charger like the Watch as well as a high speed charger via the Lightning connector.
Apple could put a firmware fix that these phones must be registered in the country that they were sold in before they can be used. They could also make it so the the EID cannot be registered again in another country for 1 year. That would end this vile black market buying.
Whether sold and used or sold and resold, it is a sale for Apple. Why should they care if 5 million phones are sold before official launch?
When a black-market sale takes place in the USA and a person living in the USA doesn’t get to have a new phone, it is unfair. If you don’t get your new iPhone 6+ because the stock is out, you might feel different that some scum is profiting by illegally exporting it to another country. The laws are a protection for us all.
All the negative press and blogging has had no effect on the popularity of Apple devices simply because the man/woman on the street knows better from the actual quality and experience. The apoplectic Apple naysayers are spitting in the wind.
There is an easy way to get rid of this problem: release in China at the same time.
Obviously, not so easy as it sounds, due to the ramp-up volume needed for that, but it would rapidly eliminate black-market revenue for that massive mark-up, which goes into the pockets of those mafiosi, and which Apple never gets to see anyway.
The Chinese government has not yet approved the phone. Apple is obedient to the law and cannot sell them there yet. I think it was even reported on this site.
Guys, many Chinese people bought more than two iPhones, all paid by cash, wondering if they resale in grey market somewhere or perhaps in mainland China?.
That is a phenomenon event, will hear from the press reports on Monday morning.
“Mandarin, Vietnamese and Spanish were being spoken outside San Francisco’s Apple Store.”
San Francisco USA?
Tim, Doni, and Cornelius, you guys forgot English was also spoken. And they aren’t tourists.
No, it’s Liberal San Francisco. . . English is probably the minority.