Apple customers look at the new Apple iPhone at an Apple store in Pal California. Unauthorised copies of the phone have turned up in China, where users can make calls and text messages, but can't receive calls. - AP

The new Apple iPhonecan be bought in China, even though it has only been released in the United States.

And the phones, which have been unlocked by hackers, don't function properly in China despite costing almost twice the list price.

Enthusiasts willing to pay 8,800 yuan (US$1,170; €860) can buy the iPhone at electronics markets in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, computer and electronics newspaper Dian Nao Bao reported in its Monday editions.

The cost is nearly double the price of the iPhone in the United States, where the gadget can be bought for US$499 (€367), and the phone doesn't even work correctly, the weekly paper said. Users can make calls and text message but can't receive calls. The voicemail function also does not work.

The iPhone is arguably the gadget of the year, combining an innovative touch-screen interface with the media-playing abilities of the iPod. It is currently only sold in the U.S, where it is restricted to a single carrier, AT&T Inc.

China already has the world's largest number of mobile phone users and the market is expected to grow rapidly in coming years as incomes rise. The government says the number of Chinese mobile phone subscribers should reach 520 million this year, up from 460 million in 2006.

The iPhone comes amid Apple's surging popularity among young Chinese urbanites. Many groove to tunes on iPods as they walk around town, while others hang out in coffee shops and surf the Internet on Mac laptops.

Good sales

One Beijing shop owner told Dian Nao Bao he gets about 30 buyers and potential buyers in one day, and that the customers don't care about the price or that the phone isn't fully functional.

The phones come from the southern industrial boomtown of Shenzhen, another vendor told the paper. However, the report did not say how the phones got to China in the first place.

Dian Nao Bao said agents with the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce recently seized several iPhones from the Zhongguancun electronics market.

Phones at the administration rang unanswered after business hours Tuesday.

- AP