Scalpers return iPads to an Apple Store in the US
The new iPad — what a stupid name — hasn’t been released yet in mainland China. But, like all iPads before it, it has found its way here via gadget scalpers in Hong Kong and the United States, who smuggle the devices into the country on the assumption that there will be a market for them. Previously, that has been so true that scalpers can sell the devices at obscene markups and still move product. But with the new iPad, things seem to be different.
The first clue came a few days ago, when the average price of gray-market new iPad imports dropped by 500 RMB ($79). Generally speaking, limited supply and extreme demand drives import prices up, not down, especially in the weeks immediately following the official overseas launch. when customers know the official China version of the device is likely still months away.
Then, perhaps in response to this, a large number of ethnically Chinese customers were seen returning bundles of new iPads to the New York Apple store yesterday. According to China Business News, these people were iPad scalpers who had planned to export the new iPads to China, but apparently for the first time ever, the gray imports from Hong Kong alone seem to be enough to meet the demand in China.
Part of the reason is that the supply from Hong Kong seems to have increased, and another reason may be that Chinese customs is rumored to be getting better at stopping US-based smugglers from getting the devices into China. But there is also a clear lack of interest in “the new iPad” when compared with previous Apple releases. When the device was first announced, I wrote a bit about why it might not hold a lot of appeal for China, but even I didn’t expect that that would actually affect sales. (After all, we wrote the same thing about the iPhone 4S, and that seems to be doing fine).
It will be interesting to see how much of this is lowered demand and how much is the increased Hong Kong supply driving prices down and US competitors out. The real China launch of the new iPad — whenever that is — should give us an indication of how excited people are about it. The norm for launches these days appears to be massive lines of scalpers and violence, so if we see anything less than that for the new iPad launch, then we’ll know for sure Apple’s latest shiny brick is a dud in the middle kingdom.
[China Business News via Sina Tech]
why do you write like such a cunt?
I think a reason is as this time Hong Kong was releasing at the same time so there is/was not really a demand for bringing them over from the USA. Before this launch Hong Kong was not a “First” launch area. So demand from USA was high. Hong Kong has 1to1 the price as retail in USA in local currency and normally Apple products are cheaper in HK than in Mainland anyway cause they have tax Hong Kong not. Further as mentioned in the article, bringing an Ipad form Hong Kong to Shenzen can be done in less than 2 hours, and no flight mulley is needed t fly over etc.. PS and this whole thing is as well driving up the Sales figures in HK cause most of the Apple products bought here are anyway going directly to chinese mainland market and other markets. in south east region and as well india etc..
This guy is a nobody. Just a person with a blog spouting off.