HONG KONG, Nov 3 — It’s only Day One, but the grey market trade in Apple Inc’s new iPhone is already in full swing in Hong Kong.

About a dozen card tables and Styrofoam boxes had been set up along Argyle Street in Mong Kok, one of the city’s busiest shopping areas, this morning.

Manned by touts surrounded by piles of Apple’s 10th anniversary smartphone, they were mobbed by shoppers — many of them reselling iPhone Xs bought earlier at one of Apple’s six official stores in Hong Kong.

The touts were paying around HK$10,300 to HK$10,500 (RM5,590 to RM5,700) to buy the 256-gigabyte iPhone X, while the 64-gigabyte edition netted HK$8,800 to HK$8,900. Apple retails the two phones for HK$9,888 and HK$8,588 respectively in Hong Kong, according to its website.

The iPhone X went on sale globally today, spurring long queues outside stores from Tokyo to Sydney.

Innovations in the phone — including a facial recognition system that uses 3D sensors — have led to delays in production, with shipping times lengthened after people started pre-ordering the handset last month. — Bloomberg