"The first day, I was selling iPhone 6 Plus on the street for almost $3,100."
Regulatory delays in China are leading to a lucrative black market for the new iPhone 6. Accounts vary, but Bloomberg reports that a 16-gigabyte iPhone 6 is currently selling in China for $1,303, while the 128-gigabyte version is going for about $2,441. Both price tags are more than double the legitimate price in Hong Kong.
“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,” a black market seller, Liu Min, tells passersby on a street in Beijing, according to Bloomberg. “Give me a call if you want one.”
According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, Apple has only passed two of three required regulatory steps for its new gadget, the Washington Post reports. The iPhone manufacturer still needs licenses for network access from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and it remains unclear when it will obtain them.
But even in China, the iPhone 6 price is quickly dropping as more and more of the devices are smuggled in from Hong Kong, which does not have the same regulatory restrictions.
“The first day, I was selling iPhone 6 Plus on the street for almost $3,100,” a seller tells the Post. “Some paid $3,200 to have it delivered to their door.”
This six-minute video shot by a YouTube filmmaker Casey Neistat provides a glimpse into the thriving black market iPhone trade.
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