Chinese shoppers pelted Apple 's Beijing store with eggs and shoving matches broke out with police on Friday when customers were told the store would not begin sales of the iPhone 4S as scheduled.

Apple said later after the fracas at its store in Beijing's trendy Sanlitun district that it would halt all retail sales of the latest iPhone in China for the time being, but said the phones would be available online, through its partner China Unicom or at official Apple resellers.

An announcer told the Sanlitun store crowd around 7 a.m., before sunrise, that the phones would not go on sale as planned and that they should leave. As the crowd became more unruly, scuffles broke out between security staff and shoppers, many of whom had waited overnight. Police moved in and dragged some people away.