The new iPhone 14 series has now officially hit Chinese stores and just, as usual, it has resulted in long queues of shoppers right outside of Apple’s store in southern Shenzhen.
There were about hundred shoppers on a line outside Apple’s physical store in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district at around noon on Friday with lots of potential owners who have pre-ordered the device waiting anxiously to get their hands on their new device.
The most interesting thing outside the store are a group of scalpers who are asking those who just bought the device whether theywere willing to resell the smartphone at a steeper price.
“The price depends on the model, we usually add 600 yuan (US$86) for some iPhone 14 Pro models to buy them, but for models like the iPhone 14 Pro Max 1TB we will give 1,200 yuan extra and can then resell it with at least a 1,500 yuan mark-up,” one of the scalpers told the Post, declining to give their name.
However, only those who had reserved a time slot were allowed in a fast-track lane while other shoppers had to queue up for about an hour before being allowed to enter into the store.
“If you don’t have a reservation and only want to look around, I advise you to come back another time as it will be a long wait,” said a security staff member at the store.
Just about 12KM away in Huaqiangbei which is home to the world’s biggest electronics trading center, dealers and scalpers were found gearing up for the first-day sale of the new iPhone 14 series with some dealers offering about 2,000 Yuan mark-up price for an iPhone 14 Pro Max with 1TB in-built storage (in a deep purple color).
Lin Shen, a so-called “backpack” dealer of smartphones in Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei without a physical store, sold three iPhone 14 Pro Max handsets in purple on Friday morning, with mark-ups of around 1,100 yuan each.
“The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max are the most popular models, especially the deep purple color, and the price keeps fluctuating during the day,” Lin said. The regular iPhone 14 and the plus version, however, have been less popular. “Our price [for these models] has dropped below the official price tag,” he said.
Elsewhere, in southern Hainan province, popularly known as China’s Hawaii, the new iPhone 14 smartphones were said to be offered at discounted prices in the duty-free shops, with models selling at 100 to 400 yuans lower than the official price tags slapped on the devices by Apple, according to the CDF duty-free store in Haikou Meilan Airport, operated by China Tourism Group.
The popularity of the new iPhone 14 series is expected to give China’s declining handset market the needed boost despite a weaker consumer demand due to the country’s slowing economy and disruptions in supply chain due to China’s zero-Covid policies.
The enduring popularity of Apple’s iconic smartphone is expected to give China’s declining handset market a boost, amid weaker consumer demand due to a slowing economy and disruptions in supply chains because of China’s strict Covid-19 control policies.
According to market analysis from China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China’s smartphone shipment dropped 31% in July to 19.1 million units due to weak consumer sentiment and the lack of major new releases.
The first seven months of the year, a total shipments in China reached 153 million units which was down 23% from the same period last year.
However, smartphone enthusiasts have paid mark-up prices in order to get their own new iPhone 14s on the first day while other consumers are prepared to wait for their deliveries which could take weeks.
Strong demands for the new iPhone 14 series crashed Apple’s online services and shipment last week when the pre-orders started.
The company had to push hack five to seven weeks beyond the launch date for the Pro and Pro Max models.
Another report on Friday also showed that orders for the Pro models would still require a wait time of about six to seven weeks in Mainland China.
According to popular Apple analysis, Ming-chi Kuo, the high-end Pro models accounted for about 85% of all iPhone 14 pre-orders in China.
“It’s unclear whether Apple will increase the Pro models shipment forecast, but the likelihood of iPhone 14 and 14 Plus shipments – which account for about 45 per cent of overall iPhone 14 shipments – being cut is growing,” Kuo wrote in a research note earlier this week.