Part of the crowd that showed up for the opening. Image: Paco Wong
FORTUNE — Three things struck me about Paco Wong’s 18-minute YouTube video (pasted below) from the opening Saturday of Apple’s (AAPL) first store in Shenzhen, China:
- The number (reportedly 250) of retail staffers the company has employed
- The size and enthusiasm of the crowd that showed up for free opening-day T-shirts
- The number of iPhones and iPads the people in line already own.
In Mike Daisey‘s description of the factory town in Southeast China where tens of millions of Apple devices are assembled, the first functioning iPad a Foxconn worker ever saw was the one the visitor from America showed him. UPDATE: Daisey’s response here.
Paco Wong’s video:
http://youtu.be/pKsZ7s0qD8M
According to M.I.C. Gadget‘s Herman Lai, Shenzhen is the main point of entry for grey market products into mainland China. In addition to making it easier for Foxconn workers to buy the devices they assemble, the new store could cut into the scalpers’ trade.
