Apple halts iPhone 4S sales in China due to safety concerns; More Androids born a day than babies

Lee Bell
January 13, 2012
3 Comments

China Apple iPhone QueuePandemonium broke out in the high streets of China’s biggest cities; Beijing and Shanghai yesterday after Apple announced its iPhone 4S would not go on sale due to safety concerns.

Swarms of iPhone buyers stretched several city blocks long outside Apple’s stores in the cities, with staff handing out tickets to customers who’d queued up early. However, Apple got worried there was just too many people and in fear of causing complete chaos had to halt of sales of its latest bit of kit. At the Sanitlun store in Beijing, the masses then turned on Apple, pelting it with eggs when it was announced it would close.

In a report by Reuters, an Apple spokesperson said that they were “unable to open our store at Sanlitun due to the large crowd,” adding, “to ensure the safety of our customers and our employees, iPhones will not be available in our retails stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being.”

“The demand for iPhone 4S has been incredible and our stores in China have already sold out,” added the representative.

Will the huge demand in the world’s most densely populated country give Apple that lead in the smartphone sale stakes?

Perhaps not, as AtlanticWire reports. At the Consumer Electronics Show yesterday, YouTube‘s global head of content, Robert Kyncl, gave a keynote address telling the audience that “there are more Android activations every day than babies born on earth”.

The audience laughed thinking it was a joke, but in fact it is not. In December last year, Google’s Andrew Rubin announced on Google+ that there are “over 700,000 Android devices powered up for the first time daily” compared to the US Census Bureau’s projected 367,419 babies born every day across the globe in 2012 estimates. Looks like Kyncl’s right.

Are you an iPhone or an Android kinda guy?

 

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Tags: android, Apple, Article, China, iPhone 4S, Smartphone
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