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.
4 responses to “Apple Slow to Arrive, on Thailand’s Black Market iPhones Sell Briskly”
Im Thai and there are already price plans for legal iPhones by Truemove.
http://truemove.com/iphone/eng…
but my friends bought the iPhone in the black market or at HK (unlocked ones).
Funny how you’re just posting about this. Tomorrow (Fri 16) is the official launch day for True’s (a Thai carrier) iPhones. The plans are quite similar to the one in the US with 2-year contract that includes voice calls, EDGE (unfortunately we don’t have the 3G technology just yet), and access to True’s own wifi network which is set up all over the city.
They are also planning to sell “unlocked” ones also but price is definitely much steeper than the black market ones. It’s been reported that the number of reservations for the upcoming True’s iPhones is not quite as good as they expected–at 3,000 I think vs. something like 20,000 they projected.
True is by far the most monopolizing company, they own cable TV, phone, mobile network and internet but their mobile network is far less stable than other companies. I’d rather stick to my jailbroken Hong Kong one on another network.