There’re basically three important things that happen on Friday, September 19, 2014. First, the Scottish decision whether they would get their independence after 300-years with England and other cousins making up the United Kingdom. And the results after the voting – 55% Nay and 45% Aye for an independent Scotland. So, for at least a generation, the Scottish will have to stick together with the English.

Second, the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus that goes on sale public around the globe – Japan, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Germany, France and of course Canada and United States. And we’ve written about the crazy queues around the world particularly in Australia, because the Aussie and the Japanese have the advantage of being the first countries to do so due to time-zone difference.

Third, Alibaba’s IPO starts trading on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) Friday morning. The company which jumped start its founder Jack Ma to become China’s richest person, has already set its share price at US$68, the top of its range, Thursday afternoon. What this means is the Chinese Internet company’s IPO is now officially the biggest in U.S. history. Whether Alibaba (Stock: BABA) can sustain its momentum or otherwise remains to be seen.

At US$68 a share, this also means Alibaba raised US$21.8 billion dollars through the offering, valuing the company at just under US$168 billion. That valuation puts Alibaba in between Amazon’s (Stock: AMZN) market cap of US$150 billion and Facebook’s (Stock: FB) cap of US$200 billion. Not bad for a former English-teacher-turned-dot-com-billionaire, Jack Ma. What did mum say about don’t ever look down on teacher (*grin*)?

 

Anyway, while everyone was busy praising how genius Jack Ma was, from an unknown teacher in a crowded dog-eat-dog world in China to raising billions through IPO, another genius Chinese student of equal intelligence is gaining attention. Apparently, a Shanghai-based Chinese student has an equally genius (though controversial) way of raising money for this ambition – by renting his girlfriend.

It seems the latest iPhone 6 was too much temptation to resist, so the student is offering to share his girlfriend in exchange for cash in an attempt to raise enough money to buy Apple’s new gadget. Chinese consumers may not be able to get one until early next year, 2015, although the factories that are producing them are in China itself. And the nearest they could get one is in Hong Kong.

But due to limited quantities sold in Hong Kong itself, the demand for iPhone 6 is outrageous high. The 128-gigabyte gold version of the larger iPhone 6 Plus could be resold for over HK$20,000 (US$2,580; £1,580; RM8,353) easily to mainland Chinese customers. That’s close to 150% profit from HK$8,088 for the same gadget on Apple Store Hong Kong. If that was not insane enough, there were reports saying that the iPhone 6 prices could reach over 20,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan (US$3,260 to US$4,890) in China.

In the past, a Chinese teenager had sold his kidney and used the funds to buy an iPhone and an iPad in an incident widely reported in 2012. Last year alone, a Chinese couple was charged with human trafficking after allegedly selling their newborn baby girl to raise 50,000 yuan (US$8,150; £5,000; RM26,300) to buy iPhone 5 and other shopping spree. Hence, this case of girlfriend rental is nothing to shout about.

Interestingly, this innovative Chinese student who advertised his girlfriend-for-rent deal near Songjiang University campus set the “Sharing Girlfriend for Pocket Money” rate at 10 renminbi (US$1.60; £1; RM5.30) per hour, 50 renminbi (US$8.10; £5; RM26.40) per day or 500 renminbi (US$81.40; £50; RM264) a month. The student was “professional” enough to provide full profile of his beloved girlfriend.

 

His girlfriend’s name is “Xiao Ai”, 170cm tall, weighing 48kg and was a foreign language student. Services included in the plan covers having meal or study together, three-person dates but “No OOXX” – obviously to mean no funny business or hanky panky. Amusingly, even if there’re takers who’re willing to rent his girlfriend for 500 renminbi a month and he could only buy the iPhone 6 Plus at 20,000 yuan a piece in Hong Kong, he would need 40-months or more than 3 years to raise his money for his must-have gadget.

Perhaps fund managers or Jack Ma should recruit this student as their trainee. If he could think of such innovative way to raise funds, certainly he’s a genius who could think of other creative ways to raise tons of money for his boss (*tongue-in-cheek*). But at the moment, we’re not sure if the mind-boggling fund raising method for iPhone 6 was his own idea or actually hatched by his own girlfriend – Xiao Ai.

 

Other Articles That May Interest You …

• iPhone 6 – The Crazy Queue Starts In Australia, Because It Cost Triple In China
• Alibaba’s Jack Ma Is China’s Richest Man. Here’s Top-5 Richest People In China
• Apple Pay, iPhone 6 & Watch – Welcome To The Party, But You’re Late
• Uh-oh, Apple’s In Trouble – Samsung Releases Note 4, Note Edge & Virtual Reality Gear
• Want Cheap Smartphone? Here’re Two For You – $25 Nokia 130 & $110 Lumia 530
• Here’s How Xiaomi Secretly Steal Your Data For Chinese Govt, And How You Can Block It
• Here’s Proof That Apple Deliberately Slow Down Its Old Models, Before A New Release

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September 20th, 2014 by financetwitter

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