Gold iPhone 5s pre-orders sell out within a day in China and Hong Kong

Apple's first gold-colour iPhone sold out immediately in Hong Kong and mainland China, according to reports and online buyers desperate to snap up the new status symbol.

State-run news website sh.eastday.com reported Wednesday that the Gold iPhone 5s models were quickly bought up after online pre-orders began Tuesday morning.

"The Apple reservation page went down once. In forums, many people talked about how they were begging to buy the gold model," it said, adding that by 1:00 pm (0500 GMT) on Tuesday all three 5s colours in every store had been reserved.

Favoured by emperors and representing wealth and luxury in Chinese culture, gold has become a badge of the country's newly wealthy.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 5s -- also available in silver and "space grey" -- launched at 6:00 am Tuesday in both Hong Kong and mainland China.

"Right after it started, the champagne gold model was sold out," Phoenix TV -- a Hong Kong-based broadcaster with most of its audience living on the mainland -- said on its website.

It was not clear how many gold phones had been made available to pre-order.

Users on Hong Kong forums who had managed to pre-order the grey or silver version of the phone were looking to trade for a gold one.

"Do I have to wait a while for there to be more stock? From the bottom of my heart, I really want a 32 gigabyte gold iPhone," sliverfly said on Hong Kong forum Discuss.com.

Although Hong Kong resellers say demand is down for the new 5s and 5c models because they are also available on the mainland -- the first simultaneous launch to both markets -- one dealer told AFP that the gold phones could still resell at a profit.

"Gold represents you are actually holding a new phone," said Lau Chi-kong of G-world Mobile in the commercial district of Mong Kok.

"There will be (a margin) of a few hundred dollars to a thousand (Hong Kong dollars)".

Another told Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily that the gold iPhones could sell for at least HK$8,000 ($1,000), an HK$2,000 mark-up on the official price.

There are also rumours on some mainland Chinese technology websites about the possibility of a new gold-colour iPad.

Apple's Hong Kong website on Wednesday took down the link to the 5s pre-order page, saying reservations would resume on September 21.

The company brought in the pre-order system in Hong Kong after chaos at the iPhone 4S launch in 2011, where hundreds queued for days to buy a phone from the city's flagship store and resellers crowded the area.

And in January last year Apple suspended sales of the 4s at its China stores after fans desperate to get their hands on it fought with security and threw eggs at an official outlet.

iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C headed to China at launch, China Telecom reveals

It's widely known that Apple is hosting an event on September 10 where the company is expected to announce the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C, but the company has not revealed any details except for sending a colourful invite. However, Chinese telecom carrier, China Telecom seems to have jumped the gun, putting out a post on micro-blogging website Weibo through its official account, advertising pre-orders for the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C.

The post, which was spotted by the Wall Street Journal was quickly pulled, however, screenshots of the post are still in circulation. The Weibo post said that China would be one of the first markets to receive the new iPhones, and that customers can pre-order it through a page set-up for the purpose. The post linked to the pre-order page that featured pictures of the two new iPhones.

The post did clarify that no details about the phone had been made public but users will get the new iPhones when they start shipping. The images of the phones on the page appear to be mock-ups of the new iPhones as they don't match any of the recently leaked photos. The iPhone 5C is made to look like the iPhone 5 with different coloured back plate complete with white glass strips.

The pre-orders page is still up but has now been turned into a landing page with a message that says "Looking forward to..." and asks consumers to leave their names and telephone number to get notified. The website does not mention the iPhone, but as the WSJ report notes, the last part of the URL of the page reads "iphone5s.asp."

While it's known that Apple is now shifting its focus to China, especially with the low-cost variant of the iPhone, the iPhone 5C, as it's said to be holding a satellite event in Beijing, as per an earlier report, it marks a major change in its strategy as the iPhone usually takes months to go on sale in the Chinese market. This would be the first time that China features in the first phase of the iPhone's release, if the post is true.

Apple's been focusing on the Chinese market for quite some time as the world looks to the orient for emerging smartphone users, with little scope for growth left in the developed markets.