The iPhone 4S is quite the hot commodity in Hong Kong. According to one analyst, the device sold out within 10 minutes after Apple made it available for pre-order.
"Our checks indicate that pre-orders in Hong Kong were sold out within ten minutes after becoming available," Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said in a Monday note to investors.
Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S started in Hong Kong on Friday, and the device officially launches in the region, and 15 other countries, on November 11. White said he expects "long lines and serial stock outs."
White also said the pre-order mania bodes well for the iPhone 4S launch in mainland China, a date for which has not yet been announced. "Hong Kong represents the first entry of the new smartphone in the rapidly growing region and we expect the 4S to reach Mainland China in December," White wrote. "We believe this rapid sell out will rest concerns surrounding the uptake of the iPhone 4S in the Greater China region that were driven by the limited language capability of Siri, which did not launch in Mandarin or Cantonese."
Apple opened its first Hong Kong store in late September. "We believe that Greater China (Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan), which is becoming a more meaningful percentage of Apple's sales, will remain an important growth driver over the next decade," White predicted.
During the September quarter, Apple generated $4.5 billion in revenue from Greater China, a 270 percent jump from last year, he said.
Hopefully the iPhone 4S launch in Hong Kong will be less dramatic than the iPhone 4's China debut last September. The Beijing flagship store lifted its two-phones-per-customer limit, prompting scalpers to snap up dozens of the coveted smartphones. Sources said fights broke out between scalpers and regular customers inside the store and police and store security were called in to regulate, eventually prompting the Beijing store to temporarily close its doors.
In recent months, Apple has also had to contend with fake Apple stores in China that looked very similar to an official Apple Store, down to the acrylic product information panels and long wooden display tables. Apple-style advertisements were visible on the walls, and employees were even clad in blue Apple t-shirts and white name tags. Officials in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming eventually forced 22 fake Apple Stores to stop using the company's trademark.
For more, see PCMag's full review of the iPhone 4S and the slideshow below.