I don't think it's a glum sign. They're still selling for a significant margin over what retail prices will be. And if you, as a prospective buyer, only need to wait a couple more weeks to get your hands on one[1], why would you pay double retail price?

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/27/apple-expected-to-...

You don't pay double to get the phone. You pay double to get the phone before everybody else. Wealthy Chinese are notorious for showing off their wealth.

So far Apple has been able to stay out of the race to the bottom when it comes to prices of its devices. And it did not look that the price of its devices was going to slow its sales much. I have always believed the 2 year contract system with small upfront cost has helped Apple move devices a lot in the US. And without 2 year contracts it would not dominate as much as it does.

> So far Apple has been able to stay out of the race to the bottom when it comes to prices of its devices.

In fact, with increased memory (128GB) and the new 6+ form factor and pricing (i.e., $100 more), the ASP of an Apple device may actually climb.

My wife and I were in the market for a phone and wandered around a large phone market in a second tier city two weeks ago. We considered the top end Samsung and Apples, but eventually bought a Xiaomi for under 900RMB ($145). It has a decent camera, a fast processor, dual SIMs. I would have preferred a FirefoxOS device but there's none available here yet.

Not to mention Xiaomi has the best copy of iOS look and feel that you can buy.

I think this is a foreign media myth. It's Android through and through, very obviously. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone could confuse it with an attempt at iOS copying, it's has zero similarity to my eye.

the copying is overt, the only people denying it are xiaomi themselves. They obviously can't enter western markets with their products as is, the lawsuits would be too easy.

While that is true, why would you assume that the poster bought the phone for that reason? He might have bought the phone for any number of reasons such as the low price, decent specs etc.

A big part of the xiaomi experience is decent (if somewhat copied) industrial design and UX, otherwise many cheap android Chinese phones can be bought with decent specs.

Or it's a sign that the market was saturated at too high a price, or a sign that people are waiting for the official release so they don't have the risk of not having warranty. If it's a glum sign for Apple that China has lost interest and that they still sold 10+m devices, I'm sure they won't be too upset.

The iPhone is in the final stages of approval in China. Is it really worth paying a premium for at this point?

http://bgr.com/2014/09/26/iphone-6-iphone-6-plus-china-avail...

>he hoped a new crackdown on smuggling by customs officers would help push their price back up.

Black market economics. Restrict the flow of desired product only serves to enrich those with access to the distribution channels.

Real market economics too. People slow down production of certain goods to have their prices go up. It happens everywhere, from food to consumer electronics.

I was under the impression that early iPhone models weren't even available in China officially and recent models have been delayed for quite a while before officially being available.

It seems this time it will simply be a few weeks as the article indicates, could it be that demand is lower for grey market iPhones 6s because of the imminent release this time around?

iPhone 5s was available for sale in China on day 1

So I guess the 5s which was the previous model wiped out the grey market entirely for iPhones then or at least set expectations for people in China? Anyways, my point was grey market for brand new iPhones is much lower than it used to be years ago.

Nope, they were crazy for the gold version.

The lack of brisk smuggler sales likely indicates confidence that Apple has passed it's hurdles in China to sell the iPhone6/+.

The iPhone boxes marked as "i 6" in the mid-article photo look like they actually contain iPhone 5S models.

Read the whole article

> “Right now at our market you won’t find a phone that is actually in its original packaging,” he said.

Theyre smuggling the phones without packaging then eusing old boxes at retail.

The authors of this piece are very brave. In a few weeks Gruber will be calling them jackasses in his claim chowder post.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, this is not a particularly useful addition to discussion...

Implying anyone cares what Gruber calls them?