By Chris Chang, posted Jul 18, 2010 at 4:00 PM, 9,660 views,

Shanghai Is Selling iPhone 4 In Gray Market, Not Apple Store

Shanghai has an Apple Retail Store, so what? There’s no iPhone 4 in there, not even an iPad. You are in Shanghai and can’t wait to get one? Just proceed to the gray market, but please prepare at least $12,000 Chinese yuan (about $1770), if you are buying an unlocked iPhone 4…

Previously, we have seen the iPhone 4 selling at crazy prices in the gray market of Hong Kong. It’s totally insane. Apparently, the stores love to sell the unlocked models which are imported from UK, and they are selling like hotcakes in the gray markets of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The price is exactly the same in three locations. For today’s Shanghai, the price of an unlocked 16GB iPhone 4 costs between $12000-14000 yuan (about $1770-2000), and that’s an unstable price. Due to the iPhone 4 shortage in UK, the retailers of the gray market could not get a sufficient amount of stock to please the Chinese Apple fans. Customers could start to use the iPhone 4 without any activations, they just need to insert their DIY micro SIM cards to start making calls. According to the retailers, the customers prefer the experience more than the usage for these new iProducts, so the price is not a problem at all.

Of course, the retailers do not only choose to sell the UK unlocked iPhone 4, they also import those US locked models. Customers could get those (16GB) at almost half the price, $7000-8000 yuan (about $1000-1200). Sadly, those phones could not be used at the moment, until there’s a software tool which can jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 4. As far as we know, the iPhone 4 will be coming soon to Hong Kong officially. The retailers of the gray market are putting their concentration on this, since it may affect their sales. According to a staff from an Apple authorized reseller store in Shanghai, the launch of iPhone 4 at HK would affect the sales of the gray market greatly, and he thinks that the price of those “water goods” (the iPhone 4 in the gray market) will drop to $10,000 yuan (about $1500). What’s more, he also stated that the iPhone 4 is getting ready to be available in China, and there are 7-8 customers who have paid deposits at their store (up to $7000 yuan, about $1000 USD). So, is China really getting the iPhone 4 soon from Apple?

Anyway, I really admired those Chinese Apple fans purchasing the iPhone 4 now, but I’m still waiting to get one at Hong Kong on July 30th. I can’t let those retailers of the gray market to earn big profits from me…

Source: Oriental Morning Post