While the Apple Watch will soon be available to the public on 10 April 2015, knockoffs have started to appear way earlier than the official release of Apple’s latest product. Obviously, these knockoffs are selling at a much cheaper price compared to the original Apple Watch’s price, which ranges from $349 (about RM1,280) to $17,000 (about RM62,200).
The brazen counterfeit industry in China works incredibly fast to churn out knockoff products that emulate the real thing. An Apple Watch knockoff was purchased by Benjamin Joffe, an investor based in Shenzhen, China, to prove how fast the local industry could produce and start selling imitation products, way before the real thing even gets released.
The “Apple Watch” was purchased for $45 (about RM165) from a shop with no name, and it had no branding whatsoever. Humourously, the watch was just packaged in a box labelled “SMART WATCH”. The smart watch features a SIM card slot, indicating it could make calls on its own. It also sports a camera which captures grainy and unclear images.
This is not the first product or brand to receive the knockoff treatment as China is also known to have made fake iPhones, knockoff Samsung Galaxy smartphones and even fake Apple Stores. Plus, it is widely known also that there are fake smartphones made by Chinese companies, including Xiaomi.
[Source: Re/Code]
