As the world dateline passes slowly into tomorrow, we’re seeing reports that people are lining up in droves to buy the white iPhone 4 in Hong Kong. According to a report by M.I.C. Gadget, eager owners and scalpers swelled the ranks of those waiting to snatch up the new shade.
Apparently the fact that grey market iPhone dealers are buying sealed 16GB white iPhones for $900 US (about HK $7,000) drove many scalpers to wait out in the hot summer night for their chance to scoop up some to resell.
M.I.C. mentions that the grey market dealers are likely to make a tidy profit from ‘rich men’ on the Chinese mainland, where the white iPhone 4 will still be selling for much more.
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“If a rich man from mainland China wants the white iPhone in bulk quantity, the grey market dealers will try their best to accept the phones from scalpers. And since the white iPhone in China’s online Apple store costs more than Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland consumers will definitely choose to get it from Hong Kong.”
The phone launches tomorrow here in the US, it will be interesting to see if a resale market arises on Ebay or Craigslist if the supplies of the phone are outstripped by the demand. It’s hard to imagine that we’ll see such urgency for late model release like this here, but with Apple products you never know.
You can head over to Unwire.HK to see more images from the white iPhone 4 launch in Hong Kong.
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