Asian gray market sellers are already anticipating an influx of new, unlocked phones on the market. Are we looking at another ‘sold out’ iPhone scenario in the U.S?

Wired carried the AP story about the excitement among gray market sellers…and potential buyers. In Asia, the grey market of phones procured from non-official channels is healthy and booming. Though the report focuses heavily on Hong Kong and China, countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore have healthy grey markets, with sellers brazenly displaying their wares in popular shopping complexes.

Which makes the recent story about the Apple iPhone being sold out slightly ridiculous. Ridiculous in noting Apple’s inability to take control of where its stocks go and how they’re offloaded. As of press time, you can easily get the first-generation iPhone in most of Bangkok’s popular shopping complexes, as well as from secondary markets such as eBay or its local versions.

Everyone knows that sooner or later, someone or a whole group of someones will find a way to unlock the originally locked phones despite what AT&T tries to do. What then is the solution to this? I suppose the best way would likely be, for countries outside the U.S, to have all the phones brought in unlocked.

What Apple chooses to ignore is that not all the telcos work the same way they do in the U.S. With the huge potential customer base, telcos can afford to subsidize phone purchases and ink mutually beneficial deals with phonemakers. In smaller countries, that’s just not an option. Apple might perhaps make a better killing by allowing the iPhones to be brought in legally and unlocked, but of course at higher prices. Unlike the typical American consumer, Asians are used to paying full-price for their phones. Even more shocking for Western telcos – they don’t whine about it.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 6:47 pm under iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.