Apple's iPhone 6 goes on sale to long lines as Chinese gray market seeks $3,000

The Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 6 and 6 Plus went on sale today to long lines in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, carriers are expected to quickly sell through their in-store stocks of the new gadgets. "At this time, Sprint's inventory on iPhone 6 Plus is extremely limited and we are in backorder," a Sprint representative told Re/code. Some who preordered the devices when they first went on sale Sept. 12 got them today, while others are expected to have to wait three to four weeks or longer, depending on when they ordered.

Meanwhile, a teardown of the iPhone 6 by the website iFixit revealed a Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) LTE modem, a Near Field Communications chipset and motion co-processor from NXP Semiconductors, a Murata Wi-Fi module, a Broadcom touchscreen controller, and other chips from Skyworks, Avago and TriQuint, according to Reuters.

The new phones will eventually make their way to China but are not officially on sale there yet because they have not received the proper certifications from China's communications regulators, and Apple has not said when they will become available there. However, that is not stopping gray-market electronics dealers from hawking the new phones for hefty premiums. Beijing electronics dealer Wang Qingyun told PCWorld that he expects initial prices for the iPhone 6 to reach over 20,000 yuan ($3,256) and perhaps up to 25,000 yuan ($4,071), depending on how many iPhone 6 units actually make it to Beijing. According to Bloomberg, four Beijing electronics vendors offered the 128 GB iPhone 6 for delivery on Sept. 20 at the equivalent of about $2,441, compared with the Hong Kong price of about $927. Article