Chinese Crowds Wait All Night for the Apple iPad 2

Posted on May 7 2011 - 11:10am by Richard Sharp

Big crowds and lots of scalpers were the name of the day in China as Apple launched the iPad 2 in the Asian country.

An early morning start didn’t do much to dampen the enthusiasm of the queue of patient technology fans. Eye witness reports suggest that there were more purchasers going for a first day shop than on the launch day of the first generation of the iPad last year, although the better weather this year might have had a lot to do with it.

Those really keen Apple fans who had decided to forsake their bed for a hard Beijing pavement were given numbered wristbands to avoid any sort of jiggery pokery, and they even had the sensible rule of returning wristbands of anyone who went away and came back before an hour had passed. It was reported that for the 8am start some customers had turned up at 5pm the day before.

Anyone who wanted to skip the queue and rush straight home with their hot new tablet had the option of paying around £30 extra to the scalpers, which sounds very reasonable.

Chinese Apple Store ahead of iPad 2 launchOfficial sales figures aren’t yet available but China is a market where Apple traditionally sells more white gadgets, and the initial on the spot reaction was that this was also the case with the iPad 2.

Online iPad 2 sales also went so well that stocks were sold out within hours. The lag time between Apple products going on sale in the US and China is dropping all the time, with the Asian country’s huge grey market having a big influence on this.

Would you queue up overnight for a new gadget? Or have you already?
Source: Mic gadget

3 Comments so far. Feel free to join this conversation.

  1. Scotty Truman May 8, 2011 at 9:17 am - Reply

    What happened in china is not surprising at all. Asians have been waiting for this tablet for months. Selling out the iPad 2 in less than 4 hours is just a replay from what happened to other countries when this tablet was released, minus the commotion and injured people!

  2. Jeffery June 21, 2011 at 2:18 pm - Reply

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  3. willowchina July 27, 2011 at 3:16 am - Reply

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