Importing a cellphone into China

[thelearninglearner]

Anybody know how I can import an international phone into China? I want to get one of the new Samsung phones coming out. Thought about buying it in china, but from reading online it seems like I might not be able to get Google play services on it (because of China and Samsung and locked bootloaders). The only way would be to import one from the states or maybe Hong Kong or South Korea (because of the processor variant) 

 

Anyway, anybody have any suggestions? I don't think they'll show up on taobao, that's probably out of the question. 

[abcdefg]

Several years ago I bought an international phone (a Sony) in Kuala Lumpur during a visa run (from Kunming.) Wanted one that had easy access to some Google apps and features that were not available on China Mainland models. That worked out well. Not sure how to do it now, post-covid. 

[thelearninglearner]

On 1/25/2022 at 12:03 PM, abcdefg said:

Several years ago I bought an international phone (a Sony) in Kuala Lumpur during a visa run (from Kunming.) Wanted one that had easy access to some Google apps and features that were not available on China Mainland models. That worked out well. Not sure how to do it now, post-covid. 

Yeah my plan was to do this in Korea or Japan. But then the virus. Now I'm thinking if I can get someone to buy it stateside and ship it or something

[LinZhenPu]

You should be able to buy one online from any online store that does international shipping and simply put in your Chinese address. Also I was able to install Google services and Play store on a Vivo phone I bought in China but this was 5 years ago.