The iPhone 17 series launched in China on Sept. 19 with booming sales. Hundreds of people lined up outside Apple’s flagship stores in Beijing and Shanghai, waiting to buy the latest model, even amid China’s sluggish economy and overall weak consumer demand.
The design updates of the new iPhone models attracted Chinese consumers, especially the models with 512 GB memory and above. iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max are the most popular.
However, as with previous models, some functions of the iPhone 17 series sold in mainland China are disabled because of restrictions imposed by the Chinese communist regime.
These disabled functions, according to Apple, include: eSIM, which isn’t supported in mainland China; Group FaceTime, FaceTime Audio, and FaceTime links; and “creating a link to a FaceTime call isn’t supported on iPhone models purchased in [the] China mainland, regardless of the country or region you’re in.”
Meanwhile, more than 30,000 apps—including popular messenger apps—are not available in Apple’s Chinese app store.
Apple pulled WhatsApp, Threads, Telegram, and Signal from its app store in mainland China in 2024 because of pressure from the regime’s cyber regulator, citing national security concerns. In 2023, Apple pulled a number of ChatGPT-like apps for the same reason. In 2020, Apple purged nearly 30,000 apps from its Chinese App Store under pressure from mainland Chinese regulators, according to data research firm Qimai.
However, the differences between the Chinese special version of the iPhone 17 series and international versions didn’t dampen Chinese consumers’ enthusiasm to get their hands on the newest phones.
In Beijing, the Apple flagship store opened at 8 a.m. local time—two hours earlier than its usual 10 a.m. opening time—on Sept. 19 to accommodate the crowds. Lines for in-store pickups began forming as early as 5 a.m.
At the Apple Store on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, a long line of customers formed outside, as reported by state-controlled media.
A Beijing store staff member confirmed that all iPhone 17 series models had sold out. Even if consumers were to pre-order, they would not receive the phone until mid-to-late October or early November at the earliest, according to state-controlled media.
Better Tech and Quality
Chen Feng, a white collar worker in Beijing, told The Epoch Times that despite the disabled functions, Chinese consumers are still willing to buy the iPhone 17, partly because of its security and privacy. “No one wants to be monitored by the Communist Party. That’s why,” Chen said.He said most people who are buying iPhone 17s are young Chinese who think that “the United States has the best technology.” No matter how powerful Huawei says its products are, “many of its products are still developed based on China’s own technology,” Chen said.
He said many of the young Chinese who buy iPhone 17s are students at China’s top tech universities and other tech professionals in this field. “They all believe that Chinese smartphones are inferior, as they themselves develop these products and technology,” Chen said.
Hu Decheng, a former general manager of a telecommunications company in Heilongjiang Province, China, told The Epoch Times that despite the fact that Apple’s AI features and many international apps, such as YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram, are unavailable in China because of the Chinese regime’s censorship policies, “many Chinese bought the iPhone 17 because Apple is considered a symbol of quality in China.”
Still, Chinese people have limited privacy, whether it’s a domestic product or an iPhone. The Chinese carriers controlled by the Chinese regime have installed spyware to monitor people’s communication and movements, Wang Guo-chen, an assistant researcher at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research in Taiwan, told The Epoch Times.
However, he noted that even with some functions disabled, “the price-performance ratio of the iPhone 17 series is still better than Huawei or other Chinese domestic phones in every aspect.”
Price
Apple’s production chain is based in China, with many products manufactured in the country, “so tariffs have little impact and prices are more reasonable,” Hu said.Wang noted that in terms of price, China’s domestic smartphones, especially Huawei’s, aren’t significantly cheaper than iPhones. After the entire mobile phone chip industry came under U.S. regulation, which restricted Huawei’s access to advanced Western chips, Wang said that Huawei’s domestically produced chips have had performance issues in their smartphones. “Therefore, their product quality doesn’t live up to their price,” he said.
The Chinese communist regime banned its officials from using iPhones for work in 2023 amid the ongoing tech war and trade war with the United States. Meanwhile, it has been promoting Chinese smartphones such as Xiaomi and Huawei through government subsidies and invoking “patriotism.”
In the past couple of years, the sales of Chinese-branded smartphones may have been supported by people who bought into the regime’s propaganda of patriotism, Wang said. “Now, they are facing some issues, such as the after-sales service isn’t as good as foreign smartphones, among others,” he said.
Spending Power
Both Hu and Wang said that the hot sales of iPhone 17 are not an indicator of China’s overall domestic consumption capacity.“China’s economic downturn, the collapse of the real estate market, fierce internal competition in industrial production, high pressure in the job market, and high unemployment rate have all made people lack confidence in consumption and prefer to save money rather than spend,” Hu said.
Wang said Chinese youth are buying the new phones. “Young people are usually more willing and dare to spend,” he said, and “they may have saved for a whole year to buy a new iPhone 17.”
Chen said, “This year’s Chinese people’s spending power isn’t very strong, indeed, far below previous years. However, people still want to buy a new iPhone, because it’s one of the very few ways to enjoy life in China, especially under the current political and economic climate.
“The best iPhone 17 costs less than 20,000 yuan, but that’s still far cheaper than buying a house or a car.”
