Apple fever was renewed in China on Friday as the California-based technology giant launched the iPad 2 for the Chinese market, drawing crowds and scalpers.
Sales of the iPad 2 began 8 am on Friday at the Apple Store in Beijing's Xidan shopping district, with hundreds of people queuing to purchase the new tablet device.
Compared to the original iPad, which went on sale in the mainland last September, the new tablet in both white and black is thinner and lighter, with a higher performance processor and dual cameras.
Only the Wi-Fi version of the ipad 2 is available for now, with the 16-gigabyte model retailing for 3,688 yuan ($567), the 32-gigabyte model for 4,488 yuan ($691) and the 64-gigabbyte model for 5,288 yuan ($814).
The prices are 300 yuan lower than the older version offered last year.
Liu Zhongni, a university student from Inner Mongolia, was the first customer in line.
The young man in his early 20s began queuing 1 pm Thursday and stayed overnight in order to secure a purchase, he told the Global Times on Friday.
A lot of other people also stayed overnight for the device, said Liu, who had queued up for the first day of sales of the iPhone 4 and the first-generation iPad, he said.
Scalpers, who make profits by reselling the device at a higher price to customers, accounted for the majority of those in the queue, said one of them, who declined to be named. Scalpers generally ask for a markup of between 150 yuan and 400 yuan for an iPad 2.
The iPad 2 is expected to account for 50 percent of total iPad sales in China in the second quarter, estimated Sun Peilin, an industry analyst with Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.
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