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Apple Halts In-Store iPhone 4S Sales in China Over Safety Concerns

singe said:
Direct comparing "orderly" queuing in U.K (population est 62.2m) and China (population est 1.3bn) is a bit naive not even taking into account the different social, cultural and wealth factors.
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Using size of pop as a basis for justifying that is silly, China has many more shops and stores to support that larger population, not to mention the sheer size difference between the UK and China in land area means that that argument is *completely* bunk since the UK actually has a higher population density than China. Society, culture, and wealth concentration certainly count more in this.

P.S -
learn to love the chinese tourist/student shoppers with wealth because they will be the ones lifting the U.K / western economies out of austerity any time soon, who do you think lends the western world money anymore aswell.
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The bulk of US debt is actually held domestically, I believe that is true of the UK as well.
 
Hello,

In the previous iPhone/China item/thread, a post of mine was removed for being, '... incredibly racist and inappropriate.' To clarify, I am part Chinese and the post was in response to a number of racist/bashing comments. My reference to Chinese people was made with the intention of showing the daftness of some thread entries. Sadly, the person/s who flagged it, and the moderators, didn't get it.

In this thread because it's live and those who saw my post may be here.

Regards,
OW
 
singe said:
@Westyfield2: Your opening statement "I'm not a racist person, but..." betrays self admission of being both ignorant and provocative (trolling to you).
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I know, I wrote it myself.
singe said:
[The Englishman] is the one claiming disability because he is too proud to graft or save.
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Sadly true, this country's going down the toilet :(.
singe said:
Stop being sensational Daily Mail reader
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Glad you recognized the pictures!
 
manu chao said:
Two questions (and potential answers):
- Why do we always see organised lines in photos from product launches in the North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and other countries and only unorganised crowds in China? Do the Apple Stores in China not even attempt to organise the lines? Are they not allowed to cordon-off lines and employ private security guards in the public space (as they do in the North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and other countries)? Or do the Chinese simply don't feel the need to obey to private security guards that show them the end of the line?
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China does not have the same cultural tradition of waiting on line for things as in many other countries. Perhaps this is the result of the country having so many people and there fairly regularly (on a historical basis) not being enough food for everyone to live. There was a line, but it just didn't hold once it got close to buying time. We might also be seeing pictures after the bad news of no iPhones for sale.

Apple did the right thing of shutting this down before it got too out of hand. They should probably give up on in store sales of the iPhone until demand starts to die down a bit.

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seek3r said:
The bulk of US debt is actually held domestically, I believe that is true of the UK as well.
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Yes, I think about 60%. But I believe China holds about $1 trillion of the US's $14 trillion in debt. But it is a big concentration because this is just one entity, the Chinese government that owns this debt.
 
kalsta said:
Hang on… How is Apple not able to meet demand at this time? The 4S has been out in other countries for a while now, and surely sales have slowed a bit in those countries. Why not have a hundred thousand of them ready and waiting in the Beijing store on launch day and let people buy as many as they want… Then what incentive would the scalpers have? But as long as supply is constrained, and there's a commercial incentive to scalp, they will do it.
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The answer is obviously that Apple can't meet demand. Presumably Apple has told the manufacturers to make every single 4S they possibly can make. This is it, this is the limit. The entire world wants iPhones and some countries are only now getting their first legal sales.

There is a small other possibility that Apple listens to idiot reviewers and critics that said things like the 4S was too little of an upgrade to be a hit. In that case, it is possible that Apple didn't have manufacturers going all out on this production line. I would be shocked if this were the case, but I also sometimes think that Apple doesn't fully believe in its own products and they don't really go all in, hence leaving cash on the table when unable to fulfill demand.
 
Anyone who has a new iPhone the day after its release is simply saying "I'm the kind of person who stands outside a closed shop all night".
 
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zorinlynx said:
Apple should just enforce a one iPhone per customer policy for the first couple weeks of sales to reduce the scalping.

I think I heard the limit in China is five per customer; of course you're going to get scalping with that limit!
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I thought it was 1 per customer, maybe even need activation. Scalpers bus in people to get in line for them and buy one for them. Think 30-50 people buying for one scalping store.
 
I'm Chinese/American and I can say this is simply how a lot of Chinese behave. There are some more civilized ones who'll stand in line, but for the mass majority, it's ugly. I mean, when you're in a country where there's that many people, being nice doesn't get you ahead of the curve.

It's stupid crap like this that makes me more likely to hang out in Japan for a vacation.

And yet when I get to Japan, I see Americans pulling this stunt there. What's up with that?


lunarworks said:
I have Chinese friends, and they've explained to me that this is simply how the Chinese behave. It's a cultural thing. They never line-up, they just crowd around, and push, and shove and try to get ahead of everyone else. Of course it leads to riot-like conditions for a very desirable product..
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hchung said:
I'm Chinese/American and I can say this is simply how a lot of Chinese behave. There are some more civilized ones who'll stand in line, but for the mass majority, it's ugly. I mean, when you're in a country where there's that many people, being nice doesn't get you ahead of the curve.

It's stupid crap like this that makes me more likely to hang out in Japan for a vacation.

And yet when I get to Japan, I see Americans pulling this stunt there. What's up with that?
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This sounds exactly like Manhattanite Syndrome. :D

Us "city folk" behave the way we do because there's so many damn people in New York City, you have to be brutal to get anywhere. Trust me, I get what you mean. :rolleyes:
 
Apple really needs to get a lock down on this scalper problem. Get these people out of the mix, and things wouldn't be so chaotic.
 
I think it is ridiculous what some people will go threw just for a phone. Seems like the greater the population of a city, the more people there are waiting in line to get these phones. My friend works for Verizon wireless and when the iPhone 4 went on sale the first day, there were about 30 to 40 people waiting outside the store for who knows how long. My friend found it funny because they had about 300 iPhone 4's in stock and those people basically stood outside waiting for no reason since there were plenty of phones available. Then again I live in Ohio so i'm sure that was a key factor. :p
 
crazy4apple said:
*Scene opens on rowdy crowd, police in riot gear standing between them and the store. A narrator comes on.*

"Tired of the drama? The stress? The danger? Then switch to the phone for which no one waits in line."

*Cut to 360 spin on Samsung Galaxy X S Pro Epic Elite 4G LTE II+, it's in a white void. Silence.*

"Samsung. The phones for which no one will beat you up, the phones that no one will steal."

:D:D:D:D:D:D:cool::cool::cool:
:apple: for life peeps
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HAHA, that's actually pretty funny.

News flash, the Galaxy S II is not a bad phone so people won't actually mine. :D
 
HelveticaRoman said:
On that logic, 100 per customer should solve the crowd problem nicely.
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It still won't help, way too much demand and not enough supply.

In Hong Kong since the launch of the 4s here our local stores have been drained of supplies every single day, and your STILL can not order it online since the initial pre-orders went through.

Our Apple store here is full all day, everyday, with people buying everything, not just iPhones and most of it just gets boxed up and shipped across the border again into China.

I'll give you an example, we had a Chinese New Year one day sale here last week which had some iPads prices discounted quite a bit for that day, so some trader from China hired a truck and bought 1000 iPads and drove them directly across into China for resale at a decent profit straight away.
 
HelveticaRoman said:
mw360 said:
Or halve the size of the crowd, the waiting times and safety concerns by offering two per customer. That's not rocket science either.
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On that logic, 100 per customer should solve the crowd problem nicely.
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I suspect mw360 was exaggerating. Obviously, some customers only want to buy one phone, but the general principle is sound, especially when you take into account organised gangs of scalpers. When you limit to one per customer, every desire to purchase becomes another body in a crowd. A family that wants to purchase three phones, must send three people. And a scalper that wants to purchase 20 phones must send 20 people. So far from removing the problem of large crowds, it very likely adds to it.

This is why I say Apple should ideally hold off on the launch of phones in these locations until it has the inventory to meet demand—and then just let people buy as many as they want. That removes the incentive for scalping altogether. They also need a heavy security presence to control movement into the store (not just let crowds stampede in), to protect both staff and customers. Building up such an inventory may not be in Apple's short term commercial interests so much, but perhaps it's the right thing to do in these situations.
 
zorinlynx said:
Apple should just enforce a one iPhone per customer policy for the first couple weeks of sales to reduce the scalping.

I think I heard the limit in China is five per customer; of course you're going to get scalping with that limit!
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When it released in HK, for some stupid reason Apple HK limited it to 10 per customer. The entire stock was bought out within hours and shifted to the famous Sin Tat Plaza (where you can literally find any phone). All prices were hiked up by $2-4000HKD
 
808? said:
It still won't help, way too much demand and not enough supply.

In Hong Kong since the launch of the 4s here our local stores have been drained of supplies every single day, and your STILL can not order it online since the initial pre-orders went through.

Our Apple store here is full all day, everyday, with people buying everything, not just iPhones and most of it just gets boxed up and shipped across the border again into China.

I'll give you an example, we had a Chinese New Year one day sale here last week which had some iPads prices discounted quite a bit for that day, so some trader from China hired a truck and bought 1000 iPads and drove them directly across into China for resale at a decent profit straight away.
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I saw the queue. It was ridiculous! I had to end up ordering my iPad online.

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lunarworks said:
I have Chinese friends, and they've explained to me that this is simply how the Chinese behave. It's a cultural thing. They never line-up, they just crowd around, and push, and shove and try to get ahead of everyone else. Of course it leads to riot-like conditions for a very desirable product.

It's very obvious here in Toronto when lining up for the streetcar. Everyone forms a nice line, then a bunch of people from China (not the Chinese actually born here) simply ignore the line, rush to the front of it when the doors open, and shove their way inside. Everyone in line rolls their eyes, and keeps quiet because they don't want to appear racist.
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It really depends where they're from. I notice that the BIG 6 crowd here in Hong Kong don't really pay attention to any other cultural behaviours. Yet the HKers will clearly follow the "rules". That's why I sometimes despise people from China (I'm Chinese myself).
 
tdar said:
An example of what I'm suggesting would be to not sell products for cash at launch (in US stores) to ensure that purchases are only made by local customers in the launch market.
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they tried that when they realized they had an issue with scalpers buying up iPads. And then they got hosed with negative PR when an african american middle aged woman on welfare came in with the cash she had been carefully saving to get an iPad and was turned away. She called one of those local news customer hotlines which made it off to be that Apple hates old people, poor people and blacks blah blah.

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TWSS37 said:
I think "Themaeds" was referring to how many workers at Foxconn commit suicide, far more of a travesty than an angry mob. We turn a blind eye to these tragedies.
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No one turns a blind eye to any of it, but there's only so much that a US country can do with a factory in Asia. Especially since there are few choices of alternate places to go. THere's quite the monopoly on production services for this time of product

interestingly, there were more folks from the Xbox factory's recent protest threatening to kill themselves than all the folks that have jumped or tried to that were confirmed Apple line employees. And yet almost every article about this past weekend's protest were labeling Foxconn as "Apple production partner" etc in the headlines.

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TWSS37 said:
Think you're not seeing the forest through the trees here. Yes, people commit suicide. How many of them do it where they work?
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Most folks don't live where they work in general. But room and board is part of the program at these factories. Single folks go to the cities, get jobs at the factories and thanks to not having rent etc to pay they can afford to send 90% of their salary home to their rural families.
 
manu chao said:
One could argue that people who can afford an iPhone are not poor people anymore. If you look at Hong Kong, there people do queue up at iPhone launches. But of course Hong Kong is richer than Beijing (at least in terms of median income), has been 'rich' for quite some time and has been under British/European influence for multiple generations.
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Read My Post. I edited it before you wrote the above, I excluded the richer countries in Asia like Sg, HK and the like.
But, if you think that even in those countries there is no poverty you are wrong.
Hell, look at how many people have a hard life even in The States, especially last few years.
 
chkenwing said:
It really depends where they're from. I notice that the BIG 6 crowd here in Hong Kong don't really pay attention to any other cultural behaviours. Yet the HKers will clearly follow the "rules". That's why I sometimes despise people from China (I'm Chinese myself).
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The difference stepping from Shenzhen into Hung Hom station is night and day. HK is civilized, mainland China is a zoo. When you're in HK and see Chinese jumping queues, screaming into cell phones, smoking indoors, littering and hawking phlegm all over the sidewalk, 100% chance they're 大陸.

To the crusaders bristling at "racist" comments, I'd like to point out that A. Chinese isn't a race, it's a nationality, and B. These comments are referring to mainland Chinese, not HKrs, Taiwanese, S'porean, Malaysian, etc. And Chinese in these places are the most critical of their PRC cousins.
 
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TWSS37 said:
Think you're not seeing the forest through the trees here. Yes, people commit suicide. How many of them do it where they work? The fact that you're championing "only" 4 at work suicide attempts is a bit disconcerting. I've been working in a place of business for over 17 years. Not once has some one tried to kill themselves at work, let alone 4 attempts in one year.
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They also live there. It's a city/factory
 
thewitt said:
You cannot stop the gangs from buying up iPhones and reselling them. They are willing to camp out for days in front of the stores to be the first 200 in line...
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Fair point. I'd think that Apple would try something different from last time, though. I generally think Apple is a smart company so maybe I'm unfairly expecting them to come up with some genius solution to a fairly difficult problem.

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Ping Guo said:
When you're in HK and see Chinese jumping queues, screaming into cell phones, smoking indoors, littering and hawking phlegm all over the sidewalk, 100% chance they're 大陸.
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I will say this as someone that has lived in Beijing for the last 8 years: it's getting a heck of a lot better. Lines used to be exceedingly rare, but now they are almost common. The smoking/spitting is still around, but it's much less and almost exclusively from older people.

Not to say this kinda stuff isn't still an annoyance, but the overall trend is in the right direction.
 
Menel said:
What does continued production have to do with safety concerns?

Three factors contribute highly to this riot. Low supply, High Demand, and Apple is pricing it below the market value stipulated by those first two factors.

Continued, and increasing production helps with the first variable.
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lol you just don't get it.
 
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