The iPhone 6 was launched barely three days ago and there is already a red hot resale market for it. The iPhones are being re-sold at prices higher than the recommended retail price.

On launch day (Sept. 19, 2014), Hong Kongers who bought the 64GB iPhone 6 Plus can flip their phone for up to S$2,450 (HKD15,000) to re-sellers or mobile phone shops in Hong Kong.

This was according to a a report on Sina.

However, as of Sept. 22, 2014, the take-in price has dropped to S$1,600 (HKD10,000) and some re-sellers and mobile phone shops have stopped taking in the new iPhone 6s altogether.

The 64GB iPhone 6 Plus is retailing for SGD1,288 in the Singapore Apple online store.

Demand from countries that missed out on the launch

The new iPhone was launched in 10 countries on Sept. 19, 2014. The countries are: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the US and the UK.

It could be that re-sellers are targeting consumers who are craving for the iPhone in countries such as China. Such reselling is illegal in most cases and the phones have to be smuggled into the countries.

The iPhone resale scene in Singapore

According to a thread in Hardwarezone, [OFFICIAL] APPLE IPHONE6 & 6+ RESALE PRICING THREAD..DON'T LET YOUR HARDEARNED EFFORTS GET WASTED!, prices of resale iPhone 6s in Singapore has also seen a sharp decline over the last three days.

It seems that there are two "competitors" in the Singapore resale market. Normal average Joes in Singapore who want to make a small windfall from flipping their iPhone, and phone dealers who want to acquire brand new iPhones as cheaply as possible for resale.

Several users in the Hardwarezone thread said that the phone dealers have artificially suppressed the resale prices. They do this by playing on people's fear that if they insisted on flipping their phones at high prices, no one would buy from them.

Thus, they would lowball prices and flip a new iPhone for less than $1,500 whereas they could have actually sold the phone for closer to $2,000.

Here's an example of a user asking to buy the new iPhone 6:

This grey market of flipping phones for resale has happened in previous iPhone launches.

It seems that the same thing is happening in the US as well:

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Perhaps the grey market is one reason why the police had to be called in to break fights up over iPhone queues over the weekend.

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