[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by pylon

Holy crap.... not the full article, as the body requires a membership. But this claims grey market prices in China are $3600!!

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/apple-iphon...-report-609697

Another article about the crazy pricing:

http://www.computerworld.com/article...-in-china.html

And based on the second article, all those people standing in line like that, are basically smugglers.

Ahh see, now when we're talking a "street value" of 2-3 times the price it starts to add up a bit more. I just thought the "$300-$500" a phone seemed suspiciously low for a world wide smuggling ring.

If we're looking at 100 iPhones at $860 a pop that's an $85,000 in up front cost before you've covered transportation and paying your front line folks going into the store.

At $500/phone you're turning that $85,000 into roughly $136,000, which isn't bad really, but you're still putting up a good chunk of change up front.

But at $1,500-$2,000/phone your $85,000 is turning into $235,000, which is worth risking a few runners at the mall & greasing a few palms along the way.

...wait are we still talking about a new iPhone here? Or is this a pitch to a VC?