A small number of customers waiting outside the Apple Store at Beijing's Wangfujing Street on September 22, 2017. [Photo: IC]

The first day of official sales of the new iPhone 8/8 Plus has been met with a lukewarm response from customers.

The Apple Store in Sanlitun in Beijing was open for business from 8am on Friday, but few were waiting to purchase the new iPhone, and some simply wanted to take a look.

The situation was more or less the same at the Apple Store's in the Wangfujing and Xidan shopping areas. The counters for ordering outside the Apple Store in Joy City in Xidan were removed early on through lack of demand.

According to one member of the in-store sales staff, one reason for the lack of buyers is that many people had pre-ordered online.

The volume of online purchases via Gome and JD.com is indeed higher. As of 6pm on Friday, sales of the iPhone 8/8Plus on Gome had seen an increase of 317.6% over those of the iPhone 7/7Plus on its first day of sales in 2016. One million pre-orders have been placed via JD.com.

Meanwhile, the number of phones purchased by Gome leasing, Gome finance, 'old for new service', etc. accounted for over 15% of all purchases.

Also, there's a possibility that some are holding out for the launch of the iPhone X on November 3, which can be pre-ordered from the end of October.