Sipping my coffee here in a Real Canadian Marriott—lovely people, the Mariotts—I noticed this little blip in the Globe & Mail about smuggled iPhones in Russia, where the unlocked phones have become such a status symbol that even the President-elect is reported to use one. Now that’s a country that is comfortable with grey market imports.
That popularity has turned into a bonanza for traders who sell the phones in kiosks and on the Internet for $1,000 (U.S.) each, more than twice the U.S. price. Hackers say they charge as much as 2,500 rubles ($106) to “unlock” them so they work locally. “It’s an icon for Russians,” said Timofei Kulikov, a lawyer and buyer of electronic products for X5 Retail Group NV, Russia’s largest supermarket chain. “If you see two businessmen at lunch in Moscow, they’ll both have iPhones on the table.”
Russia’s iPhone affair: Smuggle, unlock, talk [TheGlobeAndMail.com]
In Russia, smuggled iPhone uses YOU!
$1000? That’s only $60 more than we have to pay for them in Ireland!
oops! Actually they are €499 making them $785
Stupid American pig dogs and your californian products! I never will use iphone again.
Thanks to studid Apple policy in Russia – there are more 100 000 iphones now only in Moscow and this number could be bigger if apple would sale it legally. Apple’s thinking russians to be drunk balalayka bears helped many smugglers and tech savvy people who can unlock a phone to get really rich in few month selling iphones. apple’s lost all this money. if you go to US and buy 5 iphones at $400, than you sell em for $700 each, the profit lets you easily return the flight price.
and that’s not the whole story – another apple product, macbook air, $1700 in US, in Russia costs ..$2850 for HDD model, without SSD!!