Apple’s iPhone 17 Air sells out as CEO Tim Cook makes high-profile Beijing visit in launch week

Apple’s slimmest smartphone, the iPhone 17 Air, sold out within minutes of its launch in China on Friday, during a week-long visit by Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, who met top Chinese officials and promised to deepen cooperation with the country. 

According to the South China Morning Post, pre-orders for the iPhone 17 Air began at 9 AM local time on Friday, more than a month after its global release. The model, which supports only e-SIM connectivity, had received regulatory approval to launch in China just days earlier. 

The new phone was unavailable at all major retail outlets in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, within minutes of the market’s opening, according to Apple’s website. Some online orders had to be backlogged, and their delivery dates were extended by one to two weeks.

Chinese markets still fond of Apple amid US trade tensions

Apple products are status symbols for affluent consumers in China, despite the surge in demand for homegrown brands such as Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo. Cook’s visit this week was meant to reinforce the American tech giant’s commitment to China, where it also manufactures most of its iPhones. 

As chairman of the advisory board at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management, Cook met Vice Premier He Lifeng and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing on Thursday.

Cook personally promoted the iPhone 17 Air during a visit to Apple’s flagship store in Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping district this week, where crowds gathered to see the CEO and test the new model.

The CEO promised to increase Apple’s investments in the Chinese market in meetings with top tech representatives. China’s Ministry of Commerce, through an announcement made on state media, welcomed Apple’s cooperation and the promise to continue iPhone production locally.

Cook had met US President Donald Trump at the White House weeks earlier, where he pledged a $100 billion investment in the United States. This week, he announced Apple’s donation to expand environmental education programs at China’s Tsinghua University. 

Apple’s top representative did not disclose the value of the donation or specify how much investment it planned to inject into China, as he did in America.

Cook was also slated to meet with video game designers and creatives using Apple technology. He visited the set of a music video filmed entirely with the iPhone 17 Pro. He met Kasing Lung, the designer behind Pop Mart’s popular Labubu dolls, who gave him a custom doll modeled after himself.

Apple fights to top China’s technology company rankings

Apple’s latest sales success comes as it fights to retain its position among the top five smartphone brands in China. The company is competing with chip and smartphone manufacturer Huawei, which resurged after years of US sanctions.

China launched a nationwide subsidy program earlier this year to stimulate consumer spending on electronics after spending cooled due to economic strain woes. The program excludes smartphones priced above approximately $840, which leaves out most iPhone models. 

The US government has pressured Apple to diversify some of its manufacturing to countries like Vietnam, Thailand, and India, but China still hosts most of its production activity. Most iPhones are assembled by Foxconn in Zhengzhou, known locally as “iPhone City.”

Apple unveils new M5 Chip with leap in AI and performance

On Thursday, Apple also introduced its next-generation M5 chip, built using third-generation 3-nanometer technology. According to an insight shared on the tech firm’s website, the M5 features a new 10-core GPU architecture and Neural Accelerators in every core for faster AI workloads.

Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji, said the chip delivers up to four times the GPU compute performance of its predecessor, the M4. The M5’s CPU includes up to 10 cores, six efficiency cores, and four performance cores, with a 15% boost in multithreaded performance.

Apple said the M5 chip also improves memory bandwidth by nearly 30%, reaching 153GB per second, and integrates a powerful 16-core Neural Engine and an upgraded media engine. The chip will power the upcoming MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro, all of which are now available for pre-order.

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