Liu Min stands a few feet from an Apple Inc. (AAPL) store in Beijing hawking something that can’t be bought inside: the new iPhone 6.
While the device debuted today in the U.S., Hong Kong, Japan and Australia, there is no release date set for the world’s biggest smartphone market. That creates an opportunity for Liu, who promises two-day delivery of a 16-gigabyte iPhone 6 for 8,000 yuan ($1,303) -- almost double the price on Apple’s Hong Kong website.
“It’s going to be a while before the new iPhone comes to China officially, so if you want it now, you have to pay up,” Liu said, pacing outside the Sanlitun district store selling screen protectors. “Give me a call if you want one.”
Liu, who wouldn’t discuss his supply chain, wasn’t alone. Four vendors nearby offered the 128-gigabyte iPhone 6 for delivery on Sept. 20 at the equivalent of about $2,441, compared with the Hong Kong price of about $927.
Breaking Laws
Outside the Apple Store in Hong Kong’s IFC mall, two young women were reselling the new phones for double the price. One foreigner held up a sign saying, “Need an iPhone 6.”
Su Ling, 32, who works in the wealth-management unit at a European lender in Hong Kong, bought two devices through Apple’s small-business website for about HK$6,400 ($826) each and anticipates selling them for about HK$10,000.
“Everyone in my office who could get on the site bought a pair,” Su said. “I plan to go to Shenzhen to sell on the streets” if custom checks entering the border city aren’t too strict, he said, declining to name his employer because he’s not authorized to speak to media.
The phones are multiband devices that will work anywhere. Yet anyone selling a device on China’s black market breaks at least two laws -- the requirements to pay hefty import duties and to only use mobile phones sanctioned for sale by the government.
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