With less than 24 hours left for the arrival of Apple's "super Premium" iPhone X in India amid heavy pre-booking, Apple premium resellers on Thursday were yet to receive the stocks to begin delivering the Rs 89,000 device (starting price for 64GB variant) to those who pre-booked it.
Apple India, however, said that the company normally delivers new iPhone units either on the previous night or on the same day of the arrival.
"We are launching the much-awaited iPhone X tomorrow. Every company works in its own way. We try and avoid sending units in advance. So, if the launch is tomorrow, the iPhone X units will arrive tomorrow or later tonight," a senior Apple executive told IANS.
Some of the authorised Apple resellers in the Delhi-NCR region told IANS that they have not yet been notified about the availability of the devices that have been advertised as arriving in India on November 3.
"You will be informed tomorrow only about the availability of iPhone X. We have not got the devices so far," a representative from Imagine Store, an Apple Premium Reseller in Gurugram, told IANS.
"We cannot assure if you will get the device tomorrow. Those who had pre-booked the iPhone X are requested to wait for our call. It completely depends on the availability," he added.
Even supply chain solution provider Redington India and HCL Infosystems that sell newly-launched iPhones on their partner stores were yet to send any information on iPhone X.
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When contacted, a representative from iWorld from Kamla Nagar said they did not have any iPhone X stock yet.
"Our store hasn't got any iPhone X yet. I will be able to tell you the details only tomorrow. As far as timings are concerned, last year, the sale of iPhone 7 and 7 Plus started in the evening. We are expecting the iPhone X sales will commence in the evening this year as well," he told IANS.
An iNvent Apple premium reseller in North Delhi had earlier told IANS they were yet to receive iPhone X stocks.
"We have not received a single unit of iPhone X so far. We do not know if they have been already shipped or not. The devices are expected to reach us the day it goes on sale or maybe a day before. For iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, we had received the stock earlier," said a sales representative from iNvent.
In the past few days, several media reports have claimed that Apple is facing a huge supply gap primarily for two reasons: difficulties in assembling the new facial identification software and 3D camera, and "off the charts" pre-orders for iPhone X after the Apple fraternity didn't make the expected beeline for iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.
Analysts have already warned that the stock on hand is scarce, owing to constrained supply of key iPhone X components. The advanced depth-sensing camera system in iPhone X requires parts that only a few manufacturers can produce.
The iPhone X, which marks the 10th anniversary of the device, costs Rs 89,000 for a 64GB model and Rs 1.02 lakh for the 256GB variant.
Meanwhile, iPhone X has got a frenzied response on e-commerce site Amazon.in. The device went on pre-order on the site on October 27 and was out of stock within a few minutes.
--IANS
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