Customers may have to wait three to four weeks to get their hands on Apple Inc’s iPhone 6 Plus, after a record number of orders for the company’s latest smartphones strained available supply.
The new iPhone 6 goes on sale on Sept. 19 in the US, but the company began taking online orders on Thursday.
While the larger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus models now display a wait time of up to a month, the 4.7-inch version remains available for delivery on Sept. 19, Apple’s Web site showed. Verizon Wireless Inc, AT&T Inc and Sprint Corp, also showed shipment delays of up to six weeks on their respective Web sites.
Photo: AFP
Apple said the pace of orders has so far outstripped any of its previous iPhones.
“Response to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been incredible, with a record number of pre-orders overnight. Pre-orders are currently available online or through the Apple Store App,” spokeswoman Trudy Muller said.
Apple routinely grapples with iPhone supply constraints, particularly in years that involve a smartphone redesign. The latest iPhones come with larger screens and some analysts had anticipated that production issues may keep a lid on initial runs.
Its suppliers scrambled to get enough screens ready because the need to redesign a key component had disrupted panel production, supply chain sources told Reuters last month.
It was unclear whether the hiccup could limit the number of phones available to consumers, the sources said at the time. Apple declined to comment on supply chain issues.
In addition, Chinese customers may also have to wait until the year-end before they can buy the iPhone 6. Apple is yet to set a release date for China, the world’s biggest smartphone market.
The company unveiled its latest iPhones along with a watch and a mobile payments service on Tuesday. In the US, the new iPhone 6 will start at the same price of existing iPhones at US$199, while the iPhone 6 Plus will be at US$299 with a two-year contract.
However, wealthy Chinese looking to buy the new iPhone 6 next week could expect to pay an eye-watering US$2,500 for the handsets in Hong Kong, following Apple’s decision to delay the launch in China.
Hong Kong has long been a hub for resold and refurbished phones, and delighted vendors there were coping with a flood of pre-orders from the Apple-obsessed mainland.
The price, say sellers in the southern Chinese city, is a bargain — the phones can then be resold on the mainland, where fans could pay up to 30,000 yuan (US$5,000) for a new handset.
At Sin Tat Plaza, a bustling mall crammed with mobile phone stores in the city’s Mongkok district, posters and replicas of both iPhone 6 models are already on display on virtually every corner.
“The demand in the mainland is bigger for the iPhone 6 compared to the iPhone 5S because there are bigger changes made to it,” said Arthur Chung, who runs a phone reseller shop at the three-storey shopping center.
Chung said he will order phones from the US to match a pre-order made by a mainland customer for 300 units of the iPhone 6.
The 128-gigabyte gold version of the larger iPhone 6 Plus could be resold for over HK$20,000 (US$2,580), said Gary Yiu, the manager of the nearby iGeneration mobile phone store.
Yiu said that his store had received scores of pre-orders for iPhone 6 models a week before its release, with mainland Chinese customers making up half of the orders.
Those customers could easily turn a profit by reselling the phone on the return home, he said.
“There have been reports saying that the iPhone 6 prices could reach over 20,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan in China, so the Hong Kong price is not all that expensive,” Yiu said.
Pre-ordering in Hong Kong started on Friday, with all models unavailable within two hours.. The larger iPhone 6-Plus model was sold out in less than an hour.
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