Fans up early to catch an iPad 2
By Zhu Shenshen |
00:57 UTC+8 May 7, 2011
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
APPLE fans were out in force yesterday when the iPad 2 went on sale on Chinese mainland for the first time.
Some fans had been waiting outside stores in Shanghai and Beijing for more than 24 hours before sales began at 8am.
By then, there were long queues outside the four stores on the Chinese mainland and dozens of security staff on hand to keep the crowds in order.
"It's our festival and we come here to celebrate it," said Lily Chen at the Apple store in Shanghai's Lujiazui.
Chen, an Apple fan who has owned an iPhone and several iPods, arrived at the store in the Pudong New Area at about 5am. But there were many who had arrived even earlier, and by the time the store opened she found herself in the middle of a queue that stretched for several hundred meters.
At one of the Beijing stores, one customer keen to get his hands on the latest model had secured his place at the front of the queue some 26 hours before yesterday's opening time.
By noon, Apple's online store had exhausted its supply of iPad 2s.
By 4pm yesterday, people were still queuing up outside the Lujiazui store.
The Wi-Fi iPad 2, in black or white, costs 3,688 yuan (US$567) for the 16GB model, 4,488 yuan for 32GB and 5,288 yuan for 64GB. The 3G iPad 2 models, which require local telecommunications partners, are not available in the domestic market.
Compared to the original iPad, the latest model has two cameras, a video call function and is thinner and lighter.
Though rivals, including Lenovo, Motorola and Samsung, have also launched tablet computers in the domestic market, Apple is expected to continue to dominate the market in 2011, thanks to its huge number of applications and nice design, industry insiders said.
Apple will have a 75 percent share of the tablet market this year, compared to last year's 90 percent, according to research firms including IDC and Ovum.
Some fans had been waiting outside stores in Shanghai and Beijing for more than 24 hours before sales began at 8am.
By then, there were long queues outside the four stores on the Chinese mainland and dozens of security staff on hand to keep the crowds in order.
"It's our festival and we come here to celebrate it," said Lily Chen at the Apple store in Shanghai's Lujiazui.
Chen, an Apple fan who has owned an iPhone and several iPods, arrived at the store in the Pudong New Area at about 5am. But there were many who had arrived even earlier, and by the time the store opened she found herself in the middle of a queue that stretched for several hundred meters.
At one of the Beijing stores, one customer keen to get his hands on the latest model had secured his place at the front of the queue some 26 hours before yesterday's opening time.
By noon, Apple's online store had exhausted its supply of iPad 2s.
By 4pm yesterday, people were still queuing up outside the Lujiazui store.
The Wi-Fi iPad 2, in black or white, costs 3,688 yuan (US$567) for the 16GB model, 4,488 yuan for 32GB and 5,288 yuan for 64GB. The 3G iPad 2 models, which require local telecommunications partners, are not available in the domestic market.
Compared to the original iPad, the latest model has two cameras, a video call function and is thinner and lighter.
Though rivals, including Lenovo, Motorola and Samsung, have also launched tablet computers in the domestic market, Apple is expected to continue to dominate the market in 2011, thanks to its huge number of applications and nice design, industry insiders said.
Apple will have a 75 percent share of the tablet market this year, compared to last year's 90 percent, according to research firms including IDC and Ovum.
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