Business

Want China Times:

China’s “big three” telecom carriers — China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile — recorded over 1 million preorders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus only six hours after they began accepting them for the new phone’s Oct. 10 debut.

Buyers have been able to place their preorders at operators’ online and brick-and-mortar stores as well as their subsidiaries. The total number of preorders could exceed 2 million if they included those sold through distributors such as Suning Appliance and D.Phone.

UPDATE: Benjamin Mayo at 9to5mac reports the number is now 4 million preorders.

Both models have cleared all regulatory hurdles and will be available for pre-order on October 10th and in Chinese Apple Stores on October 17th.

Are the sales of smuggled iPhones in China a black market or a grey market? We dig into that and share some smuggling anecdotes.

From the original press release, here’s the current list of countries:

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK beginning this Friday, September 19 and in more than 20 additional countries beginning on Friday, September 26 including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

[VIDEO] Casey Neistat is a long time self-professed Apple nerd and documentary filmmaker. His latest effort involves the cultural change in the lines of people waiting overnight for new Apple product, a sea change from the early days of Apple fanatics, to the current lineups populated (at least in the case of these Manhattan Apple Stores) by people trying to make a buck.

At first blush, this was a little hard to take. It seemed like victimization, pure and simple. But then I read this piece by Dave Aiello.

I think what’s important to note about this film is that the issue is not Apple’s worldwide product release method at all. At most, the resale activity Neistat depicts represents a side-effect of the failure of the Chinese state regulatory agencies to approve the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in a timely manner. These regulatory agencies include agencies like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and collectively function as the equivalent of our Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and perhaps our Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

I would argue that, in an effort to show that they control the Chinese smartphone market and Apple does not, these agencies delayed approval of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus beyond Apple’s planned worldwide release date. By doing so, they created a situation where a graymarket of epic proportions could redevelop overnight. This graymarket may now be exploited in the fashion described in the film.

The only thing I’m really sorry about with respect to this film is that the filmmaker chose to highlight the Chinese people standing in line in New York as if they’re victims being exploited by criminals from China who are referred to as “Chinese mafia”. (Some people also call use of the term “Chinese mafia” racist.) I imagine that the people who waited in line made enough of a profit on resale of the iPhones they purchased to justify their time standing in line.

In this case, one person’s criminal is another person’s street-level entrepreneur.

Watch the video, embedded below. Some good food for thought. [via Seth Weintraub of 9to5mac]

From the Apple Press Release:

Apple® today announced it has sold over 10 million new iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models, a new record, just three days after the launch on September 19. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK and will be available in more than 20 additional countries on September 26. The new iPhones will be available in 115 countries by the end of the year.

An astonishing number.

The research agency Counterpoint Research has estimated that as many as 5 million units may be smuggled into China before it is possible for consumers to purchase officially from Apple.

Even if Chinese approval is close, the black market won’t wait for it. Fascinating.

As of 4 PM Pacific, the iPhone 6 accounts for about 2.45% of the devices MixPanel is seeing in use. The iPhone 6 Plus, meanwhile, makes up just 0.31%. Everything else (that is, every previous generation of iPhone MixPanel still sees in the wild) makes up the other 97.24%.

Why is this? Here’s one take.

Joshua Brustein wrote an inflammatory piece for Businessweek, called Hey, Android Users, Don’t Buy the New iPhones. In a nutshell, the basic premise is this: Although the new iPhones are the best phones on the market and superior to the larger screen Android devices they are replacing, it’s just too hard to switch ecosystems, so stick with Android.

I struggled with a reply to this. And then I read John Gruber’s response on Daring Fireball. Spot on. Go read it.