Everyone knows that whenever Apple drops a new iPhone series, plenty of people are going to buy it. However, even Apple themselves probably underestimated just how many people in China were going to pre-order one of the new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro devices.
According to a report by South China Morning Post, Apple’s website and online services had actually crashed when pre-orders began in China. The extremely high demand for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max in particular pushed the expected shipment dates for these two devices up to seven weeks past the original 16 September launch date in China too. Overall, there were an estimated two million orders for one of the new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro devices, with the two Pro models in particular taking up most of the orders.
Plenty of users on Chinese social media site Weibo complained about Apple’s website being down as they too tried to pre-order a new iPhone 14 device. The rise in demand for one of Cupertino’s devices also sees the rise of delivery services just for the new iPhone, with delivery company Meituan already having partnered with over a thousand Apple vendors across hundreds of cities to deliver your new iPhone in less than 30 minutes.
China has slowly become one of Apple’s biggest markets, with almost half of all high-end smartphones sold in China being one designed in Cupertino. Vivo finds themselves far behind with just 13% of the market share, while Huawei—struggling to make do with US government sanctions—down in third. This rising enthusiasm for the iPhones actually even goes against the current trend of dwindling consumer sentiment in China as it struggles with a slowing economy.
Incidentally, it’s perhaps worth pointing out that a large segment of the pre-orders in China appeared to be for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. As we covered in more detail yesterday, Apple’s gamble to replace the iPhone Mini with a 6.7-inch non-pro iPhone has not worked as well as they had expected. This is likely due to poor reception of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus which lacks any major upgrades, such as reusing the older A15 Bionic processor, keeping the older design and only slightly upgrading the cameras.
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— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) September 9, 2022
Pre-orders for Apple's high-end products have always been more popular in the early stage. This year's order allocation of Pro models is higher vs. previous years from this survey, reflecting Apple's product segmentation strategy change (only Pros receive major updates).
Meanwhile, Malaysians who wish to pre-order their own iPhone 14 device will be able to do so this weekend, with pre-orders beginning on 16 September. You can click here for more details on the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro pre-order in Malaysia.
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