NYT on gray market iPhones
The Gray Lady has published a piece examining the so-called "gray market" for iPhones in China -- legitimate products transferred through not-so-legitimate channels. Though we of course have no idea how prevalent this was before the rise of the 'Net, I have to think that the shrinking global neighborhood contributes to this a lot -- it's much easier to ask someone in another country to buy something for you when you talk to them every day on Twitter.
The NYT puts the number of non-AT&T iPhones at a whopping 1.4 million, but of course that includes unlocked phones all over the world, and people who are using iPhones without actually activating them. So we're not exactly sure of the number of iPhones floating around China (where Apple hasn't made a deal to provide official service yet). Analyst Charles Wolf says that Apple definitely enjoys listing the gray market iPhones in their sales numbers, but that the lack of an AT&T agreement with the phone sales undermines their contract plan.
However, he admits also that making the decision to sell the phones unlocked would have earned Apple more demand in the first place, so it's six in one, half-dozen in the other. There's no word on how the impending release of the SDK might affect the sale of phones for unlocking, either. But for now, it's clear that the gray market is a substantial and yet very much unknown quantity of Apple's iPhone business.
