A surge of fans forced a halt to the first sale of the Apple 4S in Beijing and Shanghai, and scalpers raided the stores (photo)

A surge of fans forced a halt to the first sale of the Apple 4S in Beijing and Shanghai, and scalpers raided the stores (photo) Early yesterday morning, in Beijing, people stayed all night outside Apple stores...

Early yesterday morning, in Beijing, people queued up all night outside Apple stores, waiting to buy the Iphone4s, which went on sale at 7 a.m.

New Express reporter Hong Wenfeng Lin Jia Chen Xuedong

There are too many people queuing up. To ensure the safety of consumers and employees, Apple has suspended iPhone sales in directly-operated retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai.

To buy an iPhone 4S, you have to brave the sub-zero winter and queue up all night to grab it with scalpers. On January 13, iPhone 4S was launched in the domestic market. Apple's directly-operated retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai were overwhelmed by people queuing up to buy the iPhone 4S, and were eventually forced to close their doors and cease sales. This was the first time in Apple's history that it had to do so globally. But "Fruit Fans" in Guangzhou behaved calmly: There are no directly-operated Apple retail stores in Guangzhou that attract scalpers, and there is no need to queue up to buy an iPhone 4S. You can get it immediately after paying. Pang Xin Express reporters visited multiple iPhone 4S sales channels in Guangzhou yesterday and found that China Unicom business halls, Gome Electric Appliances, Suning Appliances and other places have sufficient iPhone 4S stocks, so there is no need to rush to buy one.

>Beijing

>Scalpers besiege the city, and "egg attacks" stores

In the early morning of the 13th, outside Apple's direct-operated retail store in Sanlitun, Beijing In order to prevent the situation from getting out of control, the store announced in the morning that it would stop selling iPhone 4S. As a result, this further stimulated some scalpers outside the store. Some scalpers even bought bags of eggs and threw them at the glass exterior wall of the Sanlitun store. Some consumers who queued up all night outside the store were also excited and said that the Apple store was a liar. It clearly promised that sales would start on the 13th, but ended up suspending sales. The "temporary workers" hired by the scalpers to queue up were even more angry. "We agreed to queue for 150 yuan a night, but in the end we couldn't cash it in because Apple stopped selling it." As of noon on the 13th, Apple China issued an announcement stating that in order to ensure the safety of consumers and employees, its directly-operated retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai will temporarily not sell iPhones.

Shanghai

500 "Little Red Riding Hoods" formed a group to grab apples

On the evening of the 12th, some netizens revealed on Weibo: "At around 8 p.m., a shocking scene occurred in front of the Apple store in Hong Kong Plaza, Huaihai Road. Multiple King Long buses suddenly appeared in front of the Apple store, and then hundreds of people got off the bus. Everyone was wearing an eye-catching little red hat. Just when people thought it was a tour group that had just arrived in Shanghai, these "little red hats" lined up neatly and all joined the queue to buy iPhone4S all night long. "It is reported that these "little red hats" came from Qidong, Jiangsu. There were 11 buses and 500 people came, mostly middle-aged and elderly people, all for the 150 yuan they got from queuing for a night.

Online sales: Sold out on Apple’s official website

Since the iPhone 4S sold on Apple’s official website is a bare metal without a China Unicom contract and is sold according to Apple’s official pricing, going to the official website to place an order has become the first choice for “Apple fans” in Guangzhou. A reporter from Xinkuaibao logged into Apple's official website at around 8 a.m. on the 13th and saw that each registered account could purchase up to two iPhone4S at a time, but the delivery time was expected to be up to two weeks; before noon, the iPhone4S on Apple's official website had been sold out, and consumers could no longer place orders. Jingdong Mall, which is authorized by China Unicom, also revealed to the New Express reporter that iPhone 4S started selling at 7 a.m. on the 13th, and by 8 a.m., more than 3,000 units had been sold, more than 90% of which were contract machines from China Unicom; as of the afternoon of the 13th, the 16GB bare metal units had also been sold out. Reporters saw on JD.com that China Unicom contract and bare iPhone 4S models of various capacity versions were displayed as "pre-ordered" in Beijing and Shanghai, while they were still "in stock" in Guangdong.

Instructions for buying iPhone 4S

1. Old users of China Unicom can renew their contracts: Xinkuaibao reporter learned from China Unicom’s business hall that old iPhone users whose contracts have not expired can renew their contracts if they buy iPhone 4S. ” to buy the 16GB version of iPhone 4S, for example, old iPhone users only need to pay 5,880 yuan, and the unpaid phone bills on the old contract will still be returned to the mobile phone account month by month." China Unicom staff reminded the majority of old iPhone users, "The mobile phone SIM card must match the old i-Phone, that is, the mobile phone SIM card must be inserted into the old i-Phone at least every month. iPhone once.” 2. You can pay in installments with zero interest when buying a contract phone: China Unicom and China Merchants Bank have launched an installment plan to purchase iPhone 4S. China Merchants Bank credit card users can choose 12 months or 24 months, and the installment consumption amount is between 1,200 yuan and 30,000 yuan, and they can buy iPhone 4S in installments with zero interest and no handling fees.

3. iPhone 4S from Hong Kong is more cost-effective than bare metal from China: Compared with the situation where the bare metal iPhone 4S from China is priced higher by thousands of yuan, it is more cost-effective to buy bare metal from Hong Kong in Guangzhou. Taking the 16GB version as an example, the latter currently sells for about 5,000 yuan in the Guangzhou market.