The launch of iPhone 8 on Friday did not receive such enthusiastic response from Hong Kong consumers as previously, with no long queues in front of Apple outlets.
As the iPhone 8 and 8 plus went on sale across the globe on Friday, Apple stores in Hong Kong opened early in the morning and set up crowd control barriers at the entrance for customers to collect their pre-ordered products, but saw shorter-than-expected queues.
A consumer who successfully bought an iPhone 8 on Friday morning told Xinhua that customers did not even need to pre-order online before getting the new phones at the store. “This is very different from previous years and shows how low the demand is.”
Due to low demand, the number of resellers or scalpers outside the Apple stores was also obviously smaller than in previous launch days.
Outside the Apple outlet in the Causeway Bay, a scalper told Xinhua that the prices the scalpers offered to purchase the new phones were the same as or even lower than official retail prices.
The market has “low expectations” for the iPhone 8, he said, adding that many of his customers prefer waiting for the upcoming iPhone X.
In Sin Tat Plaza in Kowloon, which usually was crammed with traders reselling new iPhones on the launch day, only a small number of customers were there on Friday, with the resale prices of all iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models barely meeting official retail prices.
A local newspaper quoted owners of two different shops in the plaza as saying that they believe the iPhone 8 is not warmly welcomed by customers because it is not substantially different from the iPhone 7, but they expect the sales of the iPhone X will be better.
