Ignoring the Pump&Dump risk, I well remember in China that there were more subcontractor scams than anything else, especially on high markup goods. The subcontractor would get a contract for (say) 5000 high value named French/Italian Fashion bags. They would in fact make (say) 7500. Raw material value naff-all but put name, logo and packaging on it and you are talking £;00s. Although the companies tried to control the important bits like their tags, there was always ‘wastage’ and a thriving blackmarket in knock-off tags that would get fixed to the ‘real’ bags and the resulting spares used as ‘genuine’ Frankenstein knockoffs. Bottom line, some top brand names could be obtained for peanuts in the well-known Beijing street market area, and some ‘genuine’ articles were in reality knockoffs.
I would guess that the phone market is similar even though the component mark-up cannot be as large, so I would doubt £8 for a £150 Elephone — £30 maybe.
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