iPhones sold on the black market in Bangkok cost about $800, about eight times the U.S. retail price and over twice the average Thai’s monthly salary, a price people are willing to pay to carry around what one local tech reporter calls the Louis Vuitton of status phones.
Thailand is on Apple’s “coming soon” list for legit iPhones but correspondent Patrick Winn, who poked around the stalls at a Thai tech market for Global Post, says that in a country where about 70% of people have cell phones, not everyone is willing to wait.
Legit iPhones will contend with an existing iPhone black market, which for years has thrived in the vacuum and given rise to a network of smugglers and code breakers.
“The iPhones move fast, ” a vendor told Winn. “It’s hip. It’s sharp.”
Though the underground phones are exorbitantly priced the profit margin isn’t what attracts underground vendors. It’s the turnover that makes them worth smuggling and worth selling.
Image courtesy Global Post, full story here.
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
