Apple’s hugely awaited iPhone 5 promised to release in China on June 20th seems to have gone up on sale much prior to its release. The device has been made available on the country most popular online shopping website Taobao, which is accepting pre-orders from consumers. The website displays pictures of the latest Apple entrant and even shows a list of predicted iPhone 5 features.
Patience, China
Apple has always kept its Chinese fans waiting by bringing its products in the country much after having launched it in other countries already. The iPhone 4 was first released in America, which is Apple’s largest market around the world in January. Simultaneously UK, Canada, France, Australia, Germany and Japan were introduced to the iPhone 4. It wasn’t until four months later that Apple brought its device to the Chinese stores. Being the company’s second largest consumer market, Apple pays special attention to its products improving them majorly to suit Chinese users. Changes include enabling Siri to speak Mandarin, enhancing the experience of Mountain Lion, etcetera. Apple also makes sure that it talks about these special changes in its public statements, just to let the Chinese know how important they are.
Blackmarket Woes
It seems that now China doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and there are already dozens of orders being placed for the unreleased iPhone 5. The country is the world’s top consumer market for Smartphones, and also has a very large blackmarket. The illegal market gets a boost when any Apple product gets launched late in China, as the suppliers manage to smuggle in the products from neighboring countries quite easily.
Predicted to have the largest screen in the entire iPhone family, Chinese sources have also reported that the new iPhone 5 contains applications that have improved functionalities. Siri is said to have better and more effective voice functions. Biometric capability is also rumored to be featured. Taobao has begun to accept online orders and charges around a thousand Yuan for each order. Other online websites like Dahai99888 demands a complete payment of 6,999 Yuan. However, these online sellers do not promise on a certain delivery date.
A seller on Taobao stated “Demand is high, yesterday someone just bought two phones. Altogether we have about two dozen orders.” This just shows how much popularity Apple products enjoy in the Chinese markets. The seller went on to say “It’s not so easy to bring the phones from overseas, there’s a limit to how many you can carry in … If we could bring in a few thousand that will be great!”.
Apple recently got out of a costly settlement with a Chinese technology company Proview over the legal rights of the iPad’s name, having to pay a sum of $60 million to continue using the name rightfully. The world’s largest technology company has revolutionized the tech world time and again. It has five signature stores in China, and also has plans of further expanding its Chinese foothold by launching new stores in Chengdu and Shenzhen.
