Trying to get the priciest models in China is an exercise in patience. Backorders have reached a month and a half for many variants; only a couple are still available for late October, a month after the product’s release date.
At dinner in Hong Kong the night Apple opened orders for its next handsets, I saw a chap at the table next to me feverishly refreshing the Apple Store app on his iPhone 14 Pro, in hot pursuit of a new device, one number up. Clearly, there were many people throughout the region doing the same.
It’s still super early in this year’s shopping cycle, and the eventual sales numbers may present a different picture. But initial signals point to iPhone sales in China starting no differently than any other year — or, for that matter, than any other country.