Delay sparks ‘grey market’ scramble for new iPhones

The iPhone 6 has yet to debut in China but already it’s being referred to as “Kidney No 6”, a joke on how people have to sell at least one internal organ, or possibly two, to afford the new, bigger smartphone.

Despite the occasional TV campaign against Apple’s after-sales service, the success of domestic manufacturer Xiaomi and Korea’s Samsung, and the lengthy period it took China Mobile, the country’s biggest operator, to agree a carriage deal for the iPhone, the smart device has been making inroads in the Chinese market.

So it came as quite a surprise when Apple launched its latest model without revealing a Chinese launch date. Apple has sold a record of more than 10 million iPhones during the first weekend in shops globally, but there is still no information on when China will get the new devices.

The delay in bringing out the iPhone 6 has had repercussions all over the world. In the absence of official approval, smugglers have been active.

Customs officials in Shenzhen seized hundreds of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones in a number of raids. Hong Kong customs found one haul including 138 new iPhones being loaded onto a speedboat in a rural coastal area opposite the Chinese shore.

Shoppers at an Apple store near Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, came to fisticuffs over the chance to resell the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in China for as much as four times their retail price.

“The iPhone 6 has entered the final stage of the approval process, now it’s just a matter of time,” Miao Wei, head of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told Tencent in an interview in Beijing. “Netizens, please wait patiently.”

Last week, the Xinhua news agency said the iPhone 6 had received two of the three licenses needed in China, and was awaiting network access approval.

Last year’s introduction of the iPhone 5s was the first and only time so far that Apple’s phones were available in China on the same day as the global debut.

Apple’s sales in Greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, were up 28 per cent in the third quarter to $5.94 billion (€4.62 million), about 16 per cent of total revenue.

News that China wasn’t getting new iPhones in the first week prompted a surge in prices for the phones on the grey market, with the iPhone 6 going for 13,000 yuan (€1,650) and iPhone 6 Plus selling for 20,000 yuan (€2,540).

However, since then prices in the grey market have come down dramatically, according to the People’s Daily newspaper, as the official release date draws tantalisingly closer.