Chinese don't wait for Apple launch to get iPhone

Tag : iphone

In the meantime, Chinese consumers are not waiting for Jobs. Thecountry is widely considered the world's biggest market forsmuggled, "unlocked" and counterfeited iPhones.
More than 500,000 first-edition iPhones made their way to China, ornearly a tenth of the phone's global shipments of 5.2 million fromJune 2007 through March 2008, according to estimates from In-Stat.
Some estimates indicate 40 percent of all "unlocked" iPhones are inChina, according to telecoms consultancy BDA.
Guo Yu, a 26-year-old computer programmer, asked a friend who wastravelling to the US on a business trip in April to buy him aniPhone. The friend had iPhone orders from two other people as well.
A three-step tutorial found on the Internet showed him how tounlock his phone so he could use it on his Chinese network.
"It's so easy," Guo said, and added: "I don't care when the iPhonegoes on sale in China."
He paid 3,000 yuan (435 dollars) for an eight-gigabyte iPhone thatsells for 399 dollars in the US.
Sellers on Taobao.com, China's answer to eBay, are offering theeight-gigabyte model of the new 3G iPhone for 4,900 yuan, 3.5 timesthe 199-dollar US price tag.
"Limited units available for each buyer," wrote one Taobao seller,whose ad featured long lines outside a US Apple store. He claimedto ship the Chinese-made phones from San Francisco by courier.
Even when Apple does officially start selling the iPhone in China,the black market alternative might be more attractive.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has asked Appleto de-activate the wireless Internet function on all handsets itsells in China, BDA said.
Another contentious point is China Mobile's commitment to buildinga third-generation, or 3G, high-speed network using the homegrownTD-SCDMA standard, incompatible with the WCDMA standard the latestiPhone is based on.
The longer the delays, the more the black market eats away at thehigh-end customers Apple needs.
The iPhone's price puts it out of reach for most Chinese consumers,but Apple would be targeting a profitable smart phone niche marketthat is expected to expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 26percent to reach over 180 million units by 2010, BDA said in areport.
Apple also has to fend off Chinese iPhone clones, such as MeizuTechnology Co's M8 MiniOne device. The Guangdong-based companyexhibited the 200 dollar iPhone look-alike at Germany's CeBit fairin Hanover -- until it was confiscated.
How to tell iPhones from copycats is one of the hottest topics onthe Chinese fan site iPhone.com.cn.
The site is an indicator of China's growing iPhone fever with300,000 registered users and thousands more joining weekly,according to the site's editor Zhang Xing.
But it's not a question of demand stalling Apple's official Chineselaunch of the iPhone, analysts said, but how much the company iswilling to adapt its US-centric strategy to deal with China Mobileor one of its other state-owned competitors.
In the meantime, Chinese consumers are not waiting.