Friday, at 6 p.m., at the iStyle store in Baneasa Shopping City, which is part of the biggest retail park in Romania, one customer, a young woman from the Netherlands, was waiting to buy an iPad 2.
From Friday until Sunday, the number of sold iPad 2 tablets exceeded 170, Dora Popeneciu, general manager of iStyle Romania, one of Apple’s largest resellers on the Romanian market, told ZF.
“Of the 170 units, 40 were sold through the online store,” Popeneciu said. The company has so far imported 1,000 iPad 2s.
At eMag, the largest IT&C retailer on the Romanian market, over 100 iPad 2s were sold within less than an hour, Radu Apostolescu, eMag vicepresident, told ZF.
“We have sold more than 100 units in less than an hour,” said Apostolescu, without providing further details.
“The stock is very limited, we hope this problem will be solved fast next week,” he added.
With the official entry of the tablet onto the Romanian market, i.e. from Apple authorized resellers, even retailers that used to charge higher prices have cut them.
After midnight on Thursday June 23 to Friday, local stores have started to adjust their iPad 2 prices or, as the case may be, introduce the product in their offer for the first time.
For instance, at eMag, the cheapest iPad (16 GB, WiFi) now costs
RON2,099 (EUR497), instead of RON2,500 in April.
In the iStyle store chain, prices are similar. They range between
RON2,099 for the basic 16 GB WiFi enabled version, and RON3,549 for
the 64 GB WiFi and 3G enabled version.
(EUR1-RON4.216)