Missing iPhones May Be in Hong Kong

From InformationWeek -

Wireless industry analysts have been investigating a mystery involving iPhones. The number of phones that Apple says it has shipped doesn't match up with the number of iPhones that AT&T (and other wireless carriers have activated. In reporting quarterly earnings last week, Apple said it had shipped some 4 million iPhones, while AT&T said it had about 2 million iPhone customers as of the end of 2007, in its quarterly report. More than a million iPhones seem to be unaccounted for.

Online retailer Wireless Imports thinks many of them are in Hong Kong. Wireless Imports has 500 to 1,000 iPhones that it has shipped locked in their original boxes. A large chunk of those units, estimated at 100,00 - 200,000 were sent to Hong Kong, presumably to be unlocked.

For the majority of Wireless Imports' wholesale orders, the iPhones are shipped locked. But for retail unlocked units, Wireless Imports sells them at $600. And while Apple recently cut its retail price on the iPhone, Wireless Imports hasn't marked down its units because of the extra cost involved in unlocking them.

Upon launching the iPhone in Europe, Apple changed the bootloader that cannot be altered by a simple software downgrade to a previous software version that would unlock the phone. The bootloader restricts people from using a software-based fix to unlock their iPhones.

But it's only a matter of time before various unlocking methods flood the European market. In fact, the iPhone 1.1.2 Unlocking Solution offered by Wireless Imports is SIM card-based, not a software-based fix.