Offerings to the deceased on China's traditional Tomb-Sweeping Day, or Qingming Festival, involve all manner of modern trappings, and now include Apple's iPhone 6, which has yet to hit shelves, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
Falling on April 5, the annual festival is a prime occasion for funeral service providers to cash in as people visit the tombs of their deceased relatives, where they offer paper money and burn incense as offerings.
The newspaper said the trend of luxurious sacrificial offerings is sweeping the city. Replicas of modern high-end products, from villas to yachts, Apple products to Maotai wine, are displayed in prominent positions at shops on Guangxian Road.
One shop owner touted a paper luxury car priced at 88 yuan ($14.17), saying "It's the latest style, and I can give you a discount if you buy more."
She added that "iPhone 5s are out of fashion, but we have iPhone 6," which even include imitation chargers.
The vendor also said they had been working around the clock to fill orders for yachts and flat-screen televisions.
Chinese people burn more than 1,000 tons of paper products on Tomb-Sweeping Day every year. The so-called "white consumption" of sacrificial offerings amounted to 10 billion yuan ($1.61 billion) during the 24-hour festival in 2012, according to the China Consumers' Association.
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