Reuters writes that the southern China town of Shenzhen now has more than 30 stores claiming to be Apple outlets. The company actually has one shop and five authorised dealers in the region. The remaining 25 locations are meticulously-arranged fakes where extraordinary attention to detail even extends to official-looking wooden tables holding rows of Apple Watches as staff wearing Apple’s distinctive blue T-shirts help customers.
The proliferation of stores began a few weeks ago ahead of the reveal of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. China is a key market for Apple but with only 22 official outlets across the country it can be hard for consumers to get their hands on the expensive products. Although the company will almost double that number to 40 stores by mid-2016, the demand continues to increase, fuelling the expansion of the “fake” stores.
The boom is already threatening to implode however. With 25 fake stores, five authorised dealers and one official outlet in Shenzhen alone, some companies will inevitably be forced out of business as people are left indecisive over which store to visit and the owners compete with each other for sales. Some are considering switching to other popular phone manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomei.
The mass influx of stores has even led to the creation of businesses to supply the resources they require. In an adjoining mall to Shenzhen’s shopping centre, two shops sell all of the promotional material required to make an ordinary retail outlet resemble one of Apple’s flagship stores. Logos, staff uniforms, shopping bags and display shelves are all available to add a “genuine” feel to any new business.
Most of the products sold at the stores have been bought in China or smuggled from the United States and Hong Kong. Although many phones are genuine Apple products, some are themselves fakes. A multitude of iPhone look-a-likes exist which have been built cheaply to a similar design and run customised Android versions designed to resemble an iOS interface. Fake versions of other popular smartphones by manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony can also be found in the country.
Apple has attempted to intervene in the past but the Chinese government has not been keen to help protect the intellectual copyright associated with electronic products like iPhones and iPads. President Xi Jinping was pressured further on this by U.S. President Barack Obama during a White House visit this week but it doesn’t look like fake Apple products are going to be disappearing any time soon.
Many of the fake Apple outlets are even accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 6S. They claim buyers will receive their phones tomorrow in-line with official Apple shipping dates. The iPhone 6S is thought to have exceeded the iPhone 6 in first-weekend pre-orders, helped by launch-day availability in China for the first time.
