“Remember what happened in January when the iPhone 4S arrived in Beijing? Would-be customers and rival gangs of scalpers massed by the thousands outside the company’s two stores. Demand totally overwhelmed supply and SWAT teams had to be called in to control the rioting when Apple halted sales before they began,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“The company hasn’t forgotten, and to prepare for the launch of the iPhone 5 in China — not yet announced but expected to happen before Chinese New Year shopping begins in earnest — it opened its third Beijing store on Saturday,” P.E.D. reports. “The three-story glass palace on Wangfujing Street, the city’s most famous shopping destination, is Apple’s largest store in Asia.”
P.E.D. reports, “The crowds that showed up for the free T-shirts didn’t require the SWAT-team treatment, but there was plenty of hoopla and pandemonium as the videos attest.”
Check out the videos in the full article here.
This is precisely why MSFT, GOOG, AMD are all flagging with their sales – no one wants that junk. It isn’t a Sector-wide problem, it’s a not-an-Apple-Product problem.
And with stock price of under $610 including $100 of cash per share, the PE ratio of AAPL couldn’t be more attractive. Now is the time to buy!
Correct 110% correct ……
But but but! ‘Edward‘, the anonymous coward troll, says that AAPL is gonna drop below $600 and that Apple’s day is over! Apple’s gonna DIE!
Seriously! He said that! 😆
Did you buy any apple stock in 2012,silly rabbit
I watched that video and I don’t think I would call that pandemonium. It was just a line of people going into the store in a reasonably excited manner and being greeted by enthusiastic employees.
It’s good to see so much enthusiasm, but the headline doesn’t really fit what we were shown.
Man, your a drag…
You don’t need hyperbole to describe an Apple opening. It’s something that lesser companies try to do, but it sounds false when they do it, largely because their product doesn’t live up to the hype that they attempt to create.
Yup.
WOW! I agree with you about something ‘GM’! YEAH!
What’s wring with agreeing with someone you often disagree with? 🙂
It’s just such a surprise!
There wasn’t any pandemonium, there wasn’t any wild and noisy disorder or confusion, but we did get an audio track that had been pumped up and an orderly queue of customers, some excited some indifferent – most happy to be getting to the shop front.
Misleading headline.
Yeah, just a bit.
You have to remember, he’s subsidized by Apple. He’s not likely to be objective. But there were a lot of people in line and that’s good. That line consists of more customers than Microsoft stores will see in all of 2012! I’m not subsidized, I am being objective and I’m being generous too.
Look people how long was the video… The headline was not written to support the video…, the video was an afterthought to let you see the store /lines. So you do not know what the crowd was like before or after. They could have been tuckered out after going wild…. And that’s when the video was shot.
I am not saying the writer’s opinion of “pandemonium” might not be a bit overstated…. But then again for Chinese that may be pandemonium squared.
Bear in mind the pandamonium is a diet result of the bamboozle created by supply and demand….
(it’s all right there in black and white)
I see what you did there.
Oh. Sure, we all read it. Supply and demand : natch, had it in high school and college. Understood. But pandemonium is hardly a way to describe the people at the Apple store. Simply watching the video is proof of that. Not sure about the bamboozle? I would describe the demand as high and the supply unable to keep up with the demand. But I don’t believe that it is a bamboozle. It certainly is not intentional. Don’t know anything about the diet.
Pandas eat bamboo.
I thought pandemonium was a precious metal!
Wait, I thought there were going to be pandas?
They just went extinct. Oh well.
You mean it wasn’t panda+onion? A stew? Is dinner ready yet?
Where’s the Samsung dude holding place in line for his parents or bumping his GS3 with another GS3 to swap playlists?
Great observation! +1
Well frankly, I don’t think anybody expected this much hoopla.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110074/quotes?qt=qt1248636
If you want to advertise on MDN you should at least have the courtesy to pay them.
So no linking to IMDB to kindly assist those curious about the reference. Where might I find an approved list of linkable sites? Or, if you prefer we not link to resources outside of MDN, you might take it up with the site owners.
Silverhawk1, I certainly didn’t expect this hoopla!
SPAM!
Not my intent. Didn’t realize. Sorry to offend. I’d delete it if I could. (Still, I half-think you’re doing a hipster ironic abbreviated Monty Python skit.)
… that’s the country that actually made (assembled) the stuff.
worked in asia for years.
Asians have to strive hard to make a buck.
There’s plenty of fake stuff around, plenty of copycat stuff, so people KNOW what is good and what is rip off.
And Apple stuff was assembled there…
so for these dudes to be so enthusiastic for Apple, knowing it’s the real deal, from a country that makes half the worlds electronics … it’s a big endorsement for Apple.
Same reasoning applies even if they were buying to RE SELL as that shows theres a ready market for apple stuff in china.
Dentition of PandemoniumWild and noisy disorder or confusion; uproar.
I am in Beijing. I was in the lines and waited patiently with several hundred others as we and walked along the snake line metal fences. I arrived at 8:30am. There were several hundreds people before me, and by 9 am, a few hundred behind me.
About 8:50am, the 300 or so blue shirted Apple employees ran out of the front door and ran a circular ring around the waiting crowd, high diving and cheering as they ran around us, and back into the Apple Store. I’ve been to a few Apple Store Openings in San Francisco Bay Area, and never seen such enthusiasm from Apple employees.
I thought it was this kind of pandAmonium 😉
http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=/
Oops i meant this link
Pablo Sandoval is in Beijing?