People stood outside the Apple store to resell their brand new iPhone X within minutes
Just minutes after they got their hands on their new iPhone X devices, resellers were taking to the streets to sell them to the highest bidder.
People began queueing at the Apple store in Singapore from as early as Thursday, with hundreds camping out overnight.
Plenty of resellers were among them, when Mashable went down to the venue.
Past doors opening at 8 a.m. on Friday morning, the road outside the Apple store quickly turned into a makeshift marketplace.
A quick look around the area revealed several people brandishing white bags with the Apple logo on them, hanging around along the sidewalks, discreetly waiting to be approached.
We spoke to four resellers who didn't want to be named. Two of them were selling the 256GB iPhone X for $1,763, up from the original retail price in Singapore of $1,387 (S$1888).
All three were Singaporeans -- two queued up in the walk-in line, and one had pre-ordered.
The 256GB iPhone X retails for a lower $1,149 in the U.S.
Another Singaporean said he wasn't reselling the iPhone X on the spot, but that he was exporting them overseas to sell at a higher price. He revealed that customers overseas would be willing to pay more than $1,753 for a 256GB iPhone X.
Another Thai national said he was selling the smaller 64GB iPhone X for a whopping $1,837 back home.
There is higher demand in the resale market in countries like Thailand and Vietnam, where the iPhone X won't be available for another few months.
During the twenty or so minutes in the area, we saw several people approaching these resellers.
One man, who said he was from Sri Lanka, said he was interested but that $1,763 was too high an asking price. He added that he would be back later on in the evening to join the walk-in queue instead.
'It's worth it'
And then there were those that were buying iPhones for other reasons.
Tony Thanh Long, from Vietnam, flew in especially to buy two iPhone X devices, one to keep and the other to sell at auction.
The Vietnamese businessman told Mashable he created an auction event to sell the iPhone X to the highest bidder.
The iPhone X hasn't yet launched in Vietnam so Tony added that whoever owned the phone would be "one of the first in Vietnam to have it." He also said that some of the profits would be donated to charity.
"I spent half the price of the 256GB iPhone X to buy my ticket to Singapore," said Zuber Jusabbhai, who flew in from India's Gujarat state.
"I'm buying two, one for myself one for my wife. I think it's worth it for the iPhone X."
But it was Kittiwat Wang and Supakorn Rieksiri, two students from Thailand, that were the first in the region to get their hands on the iPhone -- thanks to fast fingers.
The 22-year-olds had pre-ordered the phone online, and simply skipped the queues to be first in line.
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Supakorn told Mashable that his "hands were shaking" as he held the 256GB iPhones. He bought two, one for himself and one for his mother, and said he would unbox it together with her when he got home.
"The first thing I'm gonna do when I get the iPhone X is unlock it with my Face ID."
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Topics iPhone
Yvette is a Viral Content Reporter at Mashable Asia. She was previously reporting for BBC's Singapore bureau and Channel NewsAsia.
