Shoppers for the iPhone 4 line up in a queue extending to three stories of a shopping mall on Huaihai Road yesterday where a new Apple store opened.

WHILE some early birds got their iPhone 4 yesterday when the model went on sale in Shanghai, many more Apple fans will have to wait until next month.

More than 500 people queued at the Apple store in the Pudong New Area to buy the new phone.

The 16GB and 32GB versions were priced at 4,999 yuan (US$735) and 5,999 yuan while the iPhone 4s sold at China Unicom and Suning Appliance stores required a deposit of 5,880 yuan or 6,999 yuan with a two-year contract.

One early customer surnamed Lu said he arrived at the Pudong store at 7am, an hour before the launch, but had to wait six hours to get his phone.

"The price is very competitive compared with the China Unicom version and I do not need to change my cell phone number," said Lu.

A staff member at the Pudong store said the first customer began queuing at 2pm on Friday.

The number of iPhone 4s available was not disclosed.

A two-level store inside the Hong Kong Plaza on Huaihai Road near Xintiandi, which opened yesterday, was also thronged by Apple fans and there was a limit of two models for each customer.

China Unicom, Apple's partnercarrier on the Chinese mainland, and Suning, China Unicom's sole iPhone 4 distributionpartner, began to take pre-orders from September 17.

China Unicom has already more than 10,000 pre-orders in Shanghai for the iPhone 4 while its stock only amounted to about 4,000 units for its more than 50 outlets. Suning received more than 9,300 pre-orders in Shanghai and had only 1,100 at its 25 major outlets in the city.

A staff member at a China Unicom outlet said only those who ordered on the morning of September 17 were able to buy the iPhone 4 yesterday while the rest would have to wait.

"We are close to sell-out and there's no timetable for the arrival of the second batch of products," he said.

Its outlets saw queues of up to 100 customers and one surnamed Wang said it took him three hours to get a phone.

The story was the same at Suning outlets where staff said the phone had already sold out.

"If you make an order now, you may have to wait for another six months," he said.

• yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
• deposit [di´pɔzit] vt.存放，存储 n.存款 (初中英语单词)
• customer [´kʌstəmə] n.顾客，买主，主顾 (初中英语单词)
• available [ə´veiləbəl] a.可用的；有效的 (初中英语单词)
• partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
• distribution [,distri´bju:ʃən] n.分配；分布(状态) (初中英语单词)
• arrival [ə´raivəl] n.到达；到达的人(物) (初中英语单词)
• launch [lɔ:ntʃ] vt.发动 n.发射；汽艇 (高中英语单词)
• carrier [´kæriə] n.搬运工人；托架 (高中英语单词)
• outlet [´autlet] n.出口；出路；通风口 (高中英语单词)
• appliance [ə´plaiəns] n.用具，装置，设备 (英语四级单词)
• competitive [kəm´petitiv] a.竞争的，比赛的 (英语四级单词)
• version [´və:ʃən, ´və:rʒən] n.翻译；说明；译本 (英语四级单词)
• mainland [´meinlənd] n.大陆；本土 (英语四级单词)