Subscribe RSSApple stores in Beijing and Shanghai have delayed the turn loose of the iPhone 4S after a scene outside a Beijing store turned ugly early Jan. 13, with angry crowds fighting and throwing eggs at one of the buildings.
Crowds of hundreds, according to the Associated Mash , waited outside overnight in 20-degree temperatures, only to be told in the morning—after the flagship amass in Beijing didn't open at 7 a.m. as expected, and the crowd became rowdy—that the store would not open and no one would get the coveted device.
To ensure the shelter of customers and employees, the iPhone "will not be available in our retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being," Carolyn Wu, an Apple spokesperson in Beijing, said in a considerably reported statement.
Chinese consumers have proved to have an insatiable appetite for mobile devices, though the Apple kind holds particular cache, and the country—along with the United States—has become a top earner for Apple, bringing in more than 10 percent of sales in 2011. During Apple's 2011 fourth monetary quarter, it opened a new store in Hong Kong, one of the 25 that officials have said they plan to open over the next few years.
