Chinese shopping malls, electronics stores, online vendors and grey markets, were all so sure that an iPhone 5 would launch this past week that many had started producing POS (point of sale) iPhone 5 displays and taking pre-orders!
Is this it? Has the iPhone 5, or New iPhone already been launched in China? Is it another one of those annoying knock off articles?
The answer is neither. We took this photo earlier this week at a local Chinese Best Buy, and as Best Buy only deals with real phones from large manufacturers it isn’t promoting some Chinese made clone, but it isn’t the all new iPhone either!
iPhone 5 Secretly on sale in China!?
Don’t get too excited though, that isn’t a leaked iPhone 5 sitting pretty in the display, its just your garden variety black iPhone 4S.
It wasn’t just this shopping mall that were betting on an iPhone 5 launching sometime in the near future either!
Gizchina News of the week
100’s of online Chinese vendors had been offering iPhone 5 pre orders months in advance of a new iPhone launch with no set date mentioned.
Not all Chinese business are willing to take the risk on betting on the new iPhone, when it will launch and what it will look like however, as Chinese iPhone case makers (usually the first to leak the latest iPhone design) have been strangely quiet this year unlike last year when the rushed out 10,000’s of protective rubber cases for what they thought the iPhone 5 would look like.
