Gitex Shopper Day 6: iPhone 6 leads premium smartphone sales; fight on for top laptop slot

iPhone 6 leads premium smartphone sales while HP, Lenovo and Dell fight it out for the top laptop slot, even as Gitex Shopper is all set to enter its final lap.

Several thousand units of the iPhone are being sold at the Shopper and even stocks are available for immediate delivery, compared to a three to four day waiting period at the beginning of the Shopper.

In comparison, there is still no news of immediate availability of the BlackBerry Passport. Retailers are still taking pre-bookings promising delivery within six to seven days. A BlackBerry sales staff told Emirates 24|7 that during the first four days alone they had managed to register 1,200 units for pre-order at the Shopper alone.

“This is just at the BlackBerry stand, we have not counted pre-orders at other retailers,” the staff  said.

The device is priced at Dh2,699 but is already discounted by Dh200 at the Shopper. Emax is also offering a Fly for Free offer with the Passport.

In compariso,n the Galaxy Note 4 is also still only in the pre-order stage. In what could be termed as a surprise move, Jacky’s introduced limited availability of Galaxy Alpha, Samsung’s slimmest phone which managed to raise several eyebrows at the Shopper. There were about 50 units of the Alpha that were available on Wednesday, ahead of the weekend rush. The 4.7 inch Alpha is priced at Dh2299 and comes with a 1280×720 Super AMOLED display, LTE enabled with Exynos octa core processor with 2GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage.

There is intense competition among the lower end models with several brands competing with attractive price points starting at Dh220 and more.

Meanwhile, the laptop division saw Lenovo, Acer, Dell and HP fight it out for the top spot. While Emax said Lenovo and HP were their top sellers, at Jumbos it was Dell and HP. At Sharaf DG on the other hand HP that was a clear leader followed by Lenovo and Dell holding the second spot, All retailers said Acer too was fast moving, with its clever and attractive pricing strategy.

The price of an i3 device has fallen to just Dh1400 while an i5 can be purchased for as low as Dh1800 while an i7 is priced at just Dh2350.

Meanwhile as the show enters into its crucial weekend period, retailers have planned more attractive bundles and surprise offers.

Many of these offers will not even be revealed and will be timed keeping in mind the crowd factor.

An official in-charge of key promotions at one of the retail units said, “Hourly offers and killer discounts are offered mostly during the evenings, when the number of visitors are high,” he said. “The last two days will also see drop in prices and stock clearance but only on older models,” he added.

The World Trade Centre has made elaborate arrangements anticipating a possible spike in the weekend crowd.

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