New Apple iPhone 6, 6 Plus revive India's grey handset market

Sluggish enthusiasm towards high-end premium flagship handsets coupled with the new marketing strategy of handset makers such as Motorola had left the grey handset market in disarray.

With a slew of not-so-exciting launches, ranging from Samsung's latest Note 4 and the S5 to the HTC M8 or the Sony Xperia range, no handset has led a flurry of consumers rushing to be the first in line to flaunt these devices.

Mobile dealers, too, had lost much business to e-commerce sites like Flipkart and Snapdeal.

But things are looking upbeat with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launches by Apple, which acted like elixir,  bringing life back to this dying business at the ever-so-popular Gaffar Market in Delhi, and injecting a fresh infusion of funds from techno-lunatics.

Soon after the iPhone launch event concluded, the opening bids or the cut-off, so to say, for iPhone 6 16GB version stood at a staggering Rs 1.25 lakh with Rs 50,000 as the down payment and Rs 1.50 lakh for the iPhone 6 Plus with half the amount to be paid up-front.

The expected date of receiving the shipment varies from end of this month to early October.

One of the dealers who we spoke to had already booked eight units (six units iPhone 6 and two units of iPhone 6 Plus) since the time of filing this story at 0002 hours.

Watch this space for more information on prices from other Indian metros.