The iPhone 4′s quick disappearance from the Chinese online store comes after all iPhone models became unavailable in Apple’s Hong Kong online store. Hong Kong was a popular source for grey market iPhones before the iPhone launched in China and has continued to remain a profitable option for smugglers due to lower taxation and thus lower prices in Hong Kong coupled with continued tight supplies in China.
I wonder what Apple was thinking when it allowed unlimited iPhone 4 purchases at its brick-and-mortar stores. Now there are purchase limits and ID requirements, but I guess not at Apple’s online store in China.