“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.]