11.18 AM Friday, 29 March 2024
  • City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
  • Dubai 04:56 06:10 12:26 15:53 18:37 19:52
29 March 2024

Grey market iPads sell like hot cakes in Asia

An Apple iPad for sale in Kuala Lumpur. Every other mobile phone stall is selling iPads in the city's Low Yat Plaza. (AFP)

Published
By AFP

Apple has not yet officially launched the iPad in Asia, but that has not stopped a booming grey market trade in the world's most talked-about high-tech gadget.

The company said on Monday that it had sold a million iPads in just 28 days, and thousands of those clever little black slabs of glass and aluminium made it to Asia. From Singapore to Seoul, Bangkok to Beijing, iPads are on sale – for a substantial mark-up on the US retail price. In Hong Kong, computer malls are doing brisk business.

"We get them from the US," said Carl Lee, a salesman at a computer shop in Mongkok Computer Centre. "But if you want one, get one quick – Apple is restricting buyers to only two iPads per credit card in the States and we don't know how much longer we can get them." The store could get 15 of the basic 16-gigabyte models "within a day", he said, for HK$5,700 ($735, Dh2,696). The same model retails in the US for $499 (Dh1,832).

Another salesman, Jay at Concept Digital in the same computer mall, offered to get up to 30 of the same model "within half an hour" for around $710 each. In Low Yat Plaza, one of Kuala Lumpur's centres for cheap electronics and gadgets, every other mobile phone stall had iPads for sale.

"We have the 16GB, 32GB or 64GB version, how many do you want?" asked vendor Caryn Lee. Prices ranged from $750 to $1,100.

"Our shop is quite big so we have been able to bring in several hundred over the past month," he said.

Most sellers said they got their iPads from a few dealers with small retail shops in the US, and one said Apple's failure to supply the device outside the country was fuelling the unofficial trade.

"It is not illegal to sell the iPad and if Apple does not bring them in to Malaysia, we will continue to do so as the demand is very, very high," said phone dealer Low Fun Meng.

Dozens of vendors are selling iPads at stalls in Bangkok's MBK mall for similar prices.