By Chris Chang, posted Aug 18, 2010 at 6:45 PM, 18,377 views,

Exclusive: Hong Kong Selling iPhone 4 Ridiculously

Maybe you got an iPhone 4 already, but there are plenty of people in Hong Kong failed to get one, even though they have the money to buy it. You would not believe this, some customers do ordered the iPhone 4 from the Apple Online Store (HK), but it took a decade of time to receive the delivery. There’s even a specialty retailer of consumer electronics in HK accepting thousands of orders while they have only hundreds of stocks. The locals are extremely unhappy for this, since they need to pay more than the official price to purchase from these retailers, and buying one is not a matter of “first come first serve”, but of randomly selected. Some customers even called the cops.

Ok, so what’s all these about? What’s so difficult to buy an iPhone 4 in Hong Kong? Since I’m living in HK, let me tell you the whole story. First of all, you need to know the methods of purchasing an iPhone 4 in this city. There are three main ways — the local carriers, consumer electronics store (like Best Buy), and Apple Online Store. Customers can forget about the local carriers if they do not wish to purchase the phone with 2 year contract. Here’s the big problem: The Hong Kongers do not want to buy the iPhone 4 with any contracts, so they could only visit the electronics store or Apple online store.

Purchasing an iPhone 4 at Apple online store (HK)

This may be the easiest way for anyone. The iPhone 4 is priced at $4988 HKD (about $640 USD) for 16GB, $5888 HKD ($758 USD) for 32GB, and Apple HK has stated that the delivery will take 3 weeks. For me, I ordered the 16GB on the July 30 and I got a confirmation email saying that the delivery date would be 23/8, and this is same for other people who ordered on 30/7 too. The company who is responsible for the delivery job is TNT. And here comes the problem. Some people who ordered the 32GB model got the package delivered on August 9, and customers who ordered the 16GB still have to wait. Next, if you and your friend ordered the iPhone 4 on 30 July and 2 August respectively, your friend could be the first one to get the iPhone 4. It is randomly selected rather than “first come first serve”. Lots of people asked, “Why would we need to order the iPhone 4 early if it’s randomly selected”?

The delivery mess

While I am waiting for my iPhone 4 to arrive, I see some customers sharing their pathetic stories on forums. Although TNT provides status updates for your delivery, but they are doing a bad job on delivering the package. When the TNT team arrives to customers’ home, they just knock the door once and quickly go away if there’s no response in a few seconds. Customers have to wait for the second delivery attempt and this could take more than 2 days. In some cases, the delivery status will show “receiver not home” while there’s no TNT guy visiting the delivery address. TNT also refuses customers to pickup manually at their warehouses. The worst case here is that there’s a TNT guy FAILED to read the correct address. The address says “ROOM 324″, but TNT has delivered the package to “ROOM 524″. When the customer knows about this, he tried to get the package back, but it’s failed to do so. He even tried to call up the police for help. Lastly, some customers, including me, have to choose to wait for the whole day at home when the status is changed as “out for delivery”.

Contacting the Apple Online Store and TNT

There’s no Apple Genius available here to help you with checking out what’s going on with your delivery. There’s a telephone number of Apple Online Store and TNT, but they are extremely busy and no one will pick up your call even you are calling for hours. Customers could only wait and wait and wait…

Purchasing an iPhone 4 at consumer electronics store

In United States, you can visit Best Buy to purchase the iPhone 4. At here, people can visit “Fortress” and “Broadway”. Both stores do provide iPhone 4 without any contracts, but they are locking you up on other stuff. Before starting to sell the iPhone 4, Fortress has published a full-page advertisement on a local newspaper, saying “4, standalone device, on sale tomorrow“.

The whole city got crazy with this ad, and people are ready to visit the chain stores which are listed in the ad, so these are the locations where you can prepare to start queuing up. Since the ad says the iPhone 4 would be on sale starting the next day, lots of people who ordered the iPhone 4 at Apple online store are canceling their orders if the package is not yet shipped. So, everyone is heading to Fortress to buy the iPhone 4. But, something ridiculous happened on the next morning.

Fortress Sells Out iPhone 4′s in 4 Minutes

This is crazy. I went to queue up at one of the chain stores starting at 6am in the morning. I’m surrounded with hundreds of people, and I’m number 20 in line. Fortress has arranged waiting lines and the store will open at 11am. Everyone is waiting for the doors to open, and they were told that each person could only purchase two units, and customers must spend $300 HKD (about $39 USD) on iPhone 4 accessories before walking out of the store. However, a bad news arrived at 9am. The Fortress store manager announced that there are only 5-10 units available at every chain stores, so they could only entertain at most 10 customers. Everyone, including me, got frustrated with this ridiculous announcement, since Fortress did not mention about this on their giant newspaper ad. Some people yelled at the store manager while some even called the cops to fix this unfair marketing ploy, according to the local forums. Fortress then provide a service of pre-ordering, customers are required to give a deposit of $1500 HKD (about $193 USD) for it. And there are no words of when the customers could pick up the iPhone 4. So, when the chain stores open, all iPhone 4’s are sold out. No riots blew up.

iPhone 4 at electronic store costs more than Apple online store

This is more ridiculous. Broadway, another major local electronics store, is also selling the iPhone 4. There are not much people purchasing the iPhone 4 at Broadway, since it costs more than the official price tag. For 16GB, you need $6488 HKD ($835 USD), and $7388 HKD ($950 USD) for 32GB model. That’s a $1500 HKD ($193 USD) price difference with Apple online store. Actually, customers do get some extra stuff with that $1500 HKD:

A soap, a screen protector, earphones, a case and some coupons… This is fXXcking ridiculous!

The Reselling of iPhone 4

If someone successfully purchased the iPhone 4 in Hong Kong, he/she could resell the phone to the gray market. Ever since the iPhone 4 had launched, the gray market of Hong Kong has been buying a great amount of iPhone 4’s to sell to mainland China, since the customers there could spend over $10k RMB to buy the iPhone 4. So, a person could resell a 16GB iPhone 4 for $6700 HKD (about $862 USD), and $7600 HKD ($978 USD) for 32GB, to the HK gray market. As far as I know, people who received their iPhone 4 on Apple online store or purchased at the local electronics store would resell the phone to earn about $1500 HKD. This is how the sales of iPhone 4 works in Hong Kong.

My feelings…

This whole thing sounds really crazy, I could not understand why buying an iPhone 4 takes so much efforts in Hong Kong. I have just got my iPhone 4 two days ago, and all I can say is that buying the iPhone 4 in HK Apple Online store is a horrible thing to do so. You need lots of patience, and bear in mind what Steve Jobs says, they want to keep every customers happy. So, be happy and wait for the iPhone 4 to arrive in your doorsteps. I believe Hong Kong is the only place to sell iPhone 4 in such a ridiculous way, maybe Steve should do something about it. By the way, the case of Fortress selling very few iPhone 4’s while accepting numerous of orders is now submitted to Hong Kong ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption). You can check out for more details at here.

Source: Unwire.hk, MingPao, Forum Threads @ Discuss.com.hk and Uwants

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