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iPhone 17 is going on sale globally as Apple faces China opponents and AI doubts

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A buyer holds up the unutilized orange-colored iPhone 17 Professional Max smartphone within an Apple retail bind in Chongqing, China, on September 19, 2025.

Cheng Xin | Getty Photographs Information | Getty Photographs

The iPhone 17 clash bind cabinets international on Friday, drawing traces from Beijing to London.

However past the settingup buzz, Apple is beneath power to end up itself, grappling with questions over its synthetic logic plans, in addition to expanding pageant. 

Merchandise on show for the 1st week come with the iPhone 17 Professional, iPhone 17 Professional Max, and iPhone Wind, in addition to unutilized Apple Oversee and AirPods fashions.

Life they had been to be had for preorders within the U.S. from Sept. 12, the worldwide settingup holds specific virtue as Apple takes on rising pageant in out of the country markets. 

China pageant

A kind of markets is China, the place consumers waited for hours — or even in a single day — to get their palms at the unutilized iPhone 

First in sequence on the Apple flagship Pack in Sanlitun, Beijing, this morning, was once Liu — he didn’t want to be known via his complete identify — who advised CNBC that he have been queuing since 11 p.m. native week Thursday for his prospect to select up the iPhone 17 Professional Max.

He stated he was once serious about the smartphone’s unutilized colour and external design, which Apple says has advanced the telephone’s warmth dissipation. 

Particularly, Liu additionally stated he has modified to Apple from Huawei in recent times, pronouncing he most popular the iPhone for day by day utility and leisure. 

Someone else, who needed to be known most effective via his surname, Yang — an erstwhile Xiaomi person — stated he have been ready to get his palms at the fresh iPhone, who prefer its working machine. 

Each Liu and Yang be expecting many Chinese language citizens to shop for their first iPhone this while because of the unutilized options, together with higher interior warehouse. 

If that pattern had been to pan out, it will be welcome information for Apple, which has misplaced marketplace percentage in China to avid gamers corresponding to Huawei and Xiaomi. 

Next years of management within the patch, the iPhone-maker now most effective holds 10% of the Chinese language smartphone marketplace, trailing native avid gamers like Oppo, Huawei, Xiaomi and others, in keeping with data from Omdia.

Up to now, the indicators are sure for the iPhone 17 order in China. Ultimate Friday, JD.com — considered one of China’s greatest ecommerce platforms — noticed the 1st slight of iPhone 17 order preorders surpass the first-day preorder quantity of extreme while’s iPhone 16 order, the corporate reported

At 10 a.m. native week on Friday, JD.com stated that iPhone 7 trade-in gross sales had been 4 instances upper than the similar duration extreme while.

Alternative markets 

Within the a lot smaller however prosperous marketplace of Singapore, the redesigned iPhone 17s had been additionally met with fervor, with lengthy traces initiation outdoor Apple retailers around the metropolis. 

Iman Isa and Daniel Muhamed Nuv, two younger pros in Singapore, had each queued for hours at Apple’s outlet within the metropolis’s iconic Marina Bay mall to shop for iPhone 17 Professionals, which they stated had been their first unutilized telephones in years. 

Bringing up the pristine design, longer battery age and advanced digital camera, they stated the unutilized telephones do business in enough quantity to secure them unswerving to the Apple ecosystem.

Strains had been even longer at an outlet in Singapore’s Orchard, the city-state’s number one buying groceries middle, with a detached queue for society who had preordered.

In response to preorder instances and shopper comments, the preliminary world call for for the iPhone 17 order seems in large part sure, stated Le Xuan Chiew, a analysis supervisor at Omdia.

The iPhone 17 bottom fashion particularly has outperformed expectancies, because the pricing at settingup remained unchanged from its predecessor in spite of upgrades in reminiscence warehouse, Chiew stated. 

In Singapore, consumers arriving at Apple retailers had additionally been having a look to nab one of the crucial corporate’s unutilized AirPods Professional 3, bringing up the product’s reside translation property as a significant promoting level.

Apple logic 

A a hit iPhone 17 settingup may backup reassure Apple traders then a fairly underwhelming rollout of its synthetic logic options, which began overdue extreme while.

Chatting with CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” extreme day, Ben Plank, well-known analyst at CCS Perception, lauded Apple’s fresh product launches however stated the corporate now wanted to bring on synthetic logic. 

“There is no question that Apple needs to deliver on AI,” he stated, noting that the corporate had “dropped the ball” extreme while via making obese guarantees that did not materialize.

“Apple has to catch up [in AI], but right now, I think they’ve got enough runway to be able to cope in the intervening period.”

– CNBC’s Eunice Yoon contributed to this record

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