Crush of 5 million iPhone 13 preorders in China took down websites

Chinese state media estimates that in excess of 5 million preorders were made for the iPhone 13 range, and the volume overwhelmed Apple's China website.

China began taking preorders for the iPhone 13 range ahead of the US, and initial reports claimed sales were outpacing those of the iPhone 12 in 2020. Now Chinese state media is saying, the total number of preorders for phones in the range has exceeded 5 million.

According to the South China Morning Post, the figure counts preorders across third-party sites as well as Apple's own online store. Reportedly Chinese retailer JD.com alone took over 3 million preorders.

Apple's own China website is reported to have been slowed to a crawl during the first preorder day. A #ApplesWebsiteIsDown hashtag was trending on social media site Weibo, getting over 460 million views.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max was the first to go on backorder, but reportedly it was shortly followed by all iPhone 13 models. Delivery dates are now estimated to begin in the second week of October, as opposed to the original September 24 date.

The South China Morning Post attributes the strong sales in part lower prices in the region. It also says that Apple is benefiting from how, because of US trade sanctions, Huawei's latest P50 and P50 Pro phones lack 5G.

7 Comments

crowley 10431 comments · 15 Years

About 3 years ago

A bit surprising. Where has all this pent up demand come from? I can’t see any particular feature of the iPhone 13 driving this.

ivanh 596 comments · 12 Years

Then, China has the latest A15 chips. Thank you Tim.

mike_galloway 115 comments · 4 Years

ivanh said:

Then, China has the latest A15 chips. Thank you Tim.

Care to explain the comment? some of us are a little slow here, and reasoning behind a comment is always helpful

thrang 1033 comments · 17 Years

crowley said:

A bit surprising. Where has all this pent up demand come from? I can’t see any particular feature of the iPhone 13 driving this.

I'm not sure why you are surprised. The rough number is around 450 million users with iPhones three years old or older... this makes the 13 a huge upgrade. Add to that the aggressive carrier offers this year, and wider 5g coverage, it would seem inevitable to that this would be a large cycle. Negatives would be COVID-whatever, cessation of stimulus checks,

The mistake made is looking at things from a current 12 user considering the 13. Nice upgrade but not revolutionary for many (though better cameras and battery life are meaningful to many). But upgrade cycles are not hard year to year, the cycles are, well, cyclical and staggered for the subsets of users with differing phone ages. My wife and daughter didn't upgrade last year but are this year. Two and three year cycle for them respectively. Two friends visiting are moving the the Galaxy S8+ to the 13 Pro Max, with a $450 credit from Verizon for those pieces of crap.

And as more and more people use the Apple Upgrade program, it's an easy decision to re-up every year for about the same monthly cost....

bshank 257 comments · 7 Years

crowley said:

A bit surprising. Where has all this pent up demand come from? I can’t see any particular feature of the iPhone 13 driving this.

The article states lower prices and other phones in China not having 5G due to US trade sanctions on China. It’s right in the article.