Hong Kong CNN —When the new iPhone 16 went on sale, locals couldn’t help but notice some less familiar faces flocking to Hong Kong’s Apple stores: Russians holding piles of cash. “We want to buy as many as possible,” one Russian buyer, Nick Alexenkov, told CNN outside the Apple store in Tsim Sha Tsui, a busy shopping district in Hong Kong. Alexenkov, the iPhone purchaser in Hong Kong, said he expected to turn a profit of up to 25% for each phone despite offering to pay 12% above the retail price to acquire those phones in Hong Kong. A man holds an Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max ahead of the launch of sales of the new iPhone 16 series smartphones in a store in Moscow, Russia September 20, 2024. A man from Hong Kong, who tried to sell two 1-terabyte Pro Maxes, complained that, at $2,027 each, the Russian buyers weren’t offering enough.

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Persons: Nick Alexenkov, Vladimir Putin, ”, Max, Alexenkov, Evgenia Novozhenina Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Kong’s Apple, CNN, Apple, Mobile, MTS, ” Reuters, Reuters Locations: Hong Kong, Tsim Sha, Ukraine, Russia, Moscow, Eldorado, Russian, Central