Apple’s new iPhone 5 is selling well in the Gaza Strip despite selling for twice the price it does in the U.S. It has reached Gaza even before it has gone on sale in Israel, its next-door neighbor and high-tech hub. The iPhone 5 only goes on sale in Israel in December.
The cutting edge smart phones were smuggled into the Palestinian territory from Egypt. Reuters reports that “the phones have been available for a couple of weeks in Gaza and they were on display on Monday in three independent mobile stores in a one-block radius in downtown Gaza City.
Prices ranged from $1,170 for the 16-gigabyte model to $1,480 for 64 gb.
“I ordered 30 and I’ve sold 20 so far,” said one dealer. “We can order as many as we want. But most people are waiting for the price to go down. They’re pretty expensive.”
The iPhone 5, launched last month, sells for $650 for the 16-gigabyte model and $850 for 64-gigabyte version in the United States.
The full Reuters report, as carried in the leading Egyptian daily Al Ahram, is here:
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Despite press reports from major Western media depicting Gaza as almost universally poor, there is in fact also considerable wealth in Gaza, and it is currently undergoing a real estate boom.
Among past dispatches (with photos) of life in Gaza, please see:
A nice new shopping mall opened today in Gaza: Will the media report on it?
Fancy restaurants and Olympic-size swim pools: what the media won’t report about Gaza
Photo: By User:Calerusnak, CC BY-SA 3.0,
