Apple had a late launch in China due to data security concerns the Chinese officials had, which made Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) wait more than the company wanted. The launch date that has been announced is October 17th with a pre-order date of October 10th. However Chinese consumers also have a choice to pre-order through the Chinese operators who have signed a partnership with Apple. The operators who are pre-ordering on behalf of Apple are China Mobile and China Telecom.
Apple’s announcement of the China launch date on Tuesday started off the iPhone frenzy in the country and to date the Chinese operators have collectively sold 1 Million iPhones. Apple still has to report officially how many pre-orders it received from the country, but it is unlikely they would release a number before the pre-order cutoff date of 10th October. The pre-order number is likely to be much more as the electronic retailers have not been included in the figure of 1 Million yet.
Expectations of numerous analysts are hovering around 2 Million pre-orders on the operator front, excluding sales through the Apple Inc. online store. Rumors are also claim that the number of 1 Million was reached in only 6 hours. Want China Times also reported that retailers who had hoarded the iPhone by purchasing it from the ten different regions where Apple launched its phone before China have nearly sold out.
This black market, with prices three times more than the tag price of Apple are expected to go down after the official iPhone launch. However until then the black market will thrive. The main reason is that due to its late launch in China, Apple has a supply backlog of around two weeks. Moreover the launch date which is two weeks away gives us the total wait time of around a month, and some people might not be ready to wait that long and purchase the remaining devices on sale in the black market.
The buyers are also being facilitated by Verizon, T-mobile and AT&T by giving them an option to upgrade to the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus without the compulsion of purchasing a two year contract. All the facts are pointing towards Apple reporting a stellar end-quarter revenue as the iPhone’s on offer have an extremely high demand in spite of having an extravagant retail price. Apple sold a total of 10 Million in its first week which could have been much more if it had received timely clearance to launch in China and if the company had not run into supply limitations.
Speculations have started to pile up regarding Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) fourth quarter revenue, which is expected to be at the higher end of the company’s internal range of $37 to $40 Billion. It is true that Apple had a rough patch with its shares dropping below $100 when bendgate hit the news, but after the China launch announcement the company is now at $99.5, up around 0.3%. Wall Street has been bullish in Apple’s fourth quarter and analysts predicting sales around $39.6 Billion – things look good for the tech giant.
