Indian businessman flies to Singapore to buy new iPhone as wedding gift

An Indian businessman flew all the way to Singapore and lined up for 13 hours overnight outside an Apple store to buy the latest iPhone as a wedding gift for his daughter.

Amin Ahmed Dholiya, 43, was the first in the queue outside the Apple store on Orchard Road, where he arrived around 7 pm on Thursday to get his hands on the iPhone 8 Plus which hit the shelves yesterday, reported The Straits Times.

"I will buy two (phones), one for my other daughter (as well). This is my first-time queuing overnight for something. I am feeling good now but it will be hard to stand all night," he was quoted as saying on Thursday.

When the store opened at 8 am yesterday, there were some 200 people, including many foreigners, in the queue. Dholiya returned home last night, according to the Singapore daily.

The new iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus were the first major products launched at the store since it opened in May.

Foreigners "have a bigger reason to queue up and buy" at the Apple store here because the new devices have not yet been launched in their countries, and many of them may have to buy the phones without contract even when the phones are launched back home," said Kiranjeet Kaur, a senior research manager for client devices at market research firm IDC Asia-Pacific.

Apple had on September 12 unveiled the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus.

Singapore consumers will generally prefer to get the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus at a subsidised price with a telco contract, said Kaur.

Many customers from the three Singapore telcos avoided queuing for too long as they could book time slots to collect their new iPhones elsewhere.