The reason for interest in the new iPhone X is that it is the first Apple gadget in several years with radically new features / Josh Edelson / AFP

"I will provide a service for selling one of the first places in line for the new iPhone X," says an ad on the Avito website. The author asks for 30,000 rubles for the service (half of which as an advance payment) and is even ready to secure this in the contract. Buyers are already lining up for the new iPhone X, sales of which in Russia will start on November 3.

There is already a queue online. Pre-orders for the iPhone X began worldwide on October 27 at midnight California time (10:00 Moscow time), but the devices did not last long. Just 10 minutes later, buyers began receiving messages that they would have to wait more than four weeks for their smartphone, writes the Financial Times (FT). By 14:30 Moscow time, the Russian Apple online store promised to deliver the gadget in 5-6 weeks.

Probably, exceptionally high demand was superimposed on a smaller print run (in comparison with previous new products), the FT suggests. For several months, the media wrote about problems with the production of components for the 3D camera and OLED screen for the iPhone, the publication recalls. Apple itself acknowledged them in September.

How pre-order works

Russia is among the so-called first wave countries for iPhone sales – they will begin at the same time as the US. The iPhone X is currently the most expensive Apple smartphone. With 64 GB of built-in memory it costs 79,990 rubles, and with 256 GB of memory – 91,990 rubles.

According to Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group, approximately 15,000 iPhone Xs will go on sale in Russia on November 3 (versus 40,000 iPhone 8s that appeared in Russia at the end of September 2017). An employee of an Apple partner agrees with these estimates. The first batch may be larger, but not by much, says an employee of one of the retail chains.

Pre-ordering for the iPhone is available not only on the manufacturer's official website, but also in retail. Moreover, some companies charged for it: for example, re:Store, M.video , MTS . In Megafon and Euroset retail, it was free (as well as directly from Apple). But Svyaznoy and VimpelCom combined paid and free pre-orders.

Overtook his brothers

Pre-orders began in Russian networks last Friday morning, and by mid-day some sellers had closed them: the devices reserved for pre-order simply ran out.

By mid-Friday, re:Store, M.Video and MTS had sold out of the entire batch of paid pre-orders. But Euroset, Svyaznoy and VimpelCom continued to accept orders on their websites on Sunday evening. The sales quotas for devices that Apple issues to its partners are proportional to their share of the smartphone market. And for retailers that continued pre-ordering, it is higher than for others, two sources at major federal retailers explain to Vedomosti, and a source from a company that stopped pre-ordering confirms.

Retailers compared pre-orders for the iPhone X and its predecessors. Thus, in the first four hours after the launch, customers ordered 52% more iPhone X than iPhone 8, and 11% more than iPhone 7, says Euroset representative Alexandra Pertseva. According to Lyudmila Semushina from Inventive Retail Group (which owns re:Store), in 6 minutes, re:Store ordered as many iPhone Xs as iPhone 8s in a day. And Svyaznoy representative Sergey Tikhonov claims that in the first three hours, his chain ordered as many iPhone Xs as iPhone 8s in three days.

The reason for users' interest in the iPhone X is that it is the first smartphone in four years with radically new functions, says Telecom Daily CEO Denis Kuskov. This includes a new display, a larger screen, and a face recognition system, he lists.

The resellers are happy

Estimates of the number of iPhone X smartphones that Apple may release in the coming months vary widely – from 20 million to 40 million, the FT notes. However, the shortage of gadgets this time will be longer than in the cases of previous models. In November, the order fulfillment period will be from four to six weeks, the publication cites independent expert Gene Munster. The iPhone X will reach a balance between supply and demand on the global market somewhere in the first quarter of 2018, i.e. 3-4 months after release, Munster believes. Usually, a new model takes up to three months.

And resellers are already ordering hundreds of iPhone X from official sellers, Murtazin claims. He does not rule out that a gray market for iPhone X may emerge due to the shortage.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

iPhone X may become a shortage in Russia