Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro series posted a 12% year-over-year sales increase in its first week on sale in China, a strong enough debut to put Apple at the top of the country’s weekly smartphone rankings, according to Counterpoint Research.
The new Pro models went on sale September 18, and during that week — covering September 14 to 20 — they were available for only the final three trading days. Even in that short window, Apple captured about 33% of China’s smartphone sales for the period. Other industry data, citing Chinese handset tracker “RD Observation,” put actual sell-through across all channels at nearly 1.3 million units in the first full week, equivalent to 115% of the previous-generation iPhone 17 Pro series’ total sales over the same period.
Counterpoint senior analyst Ivan Lam attributed part of the surge to the delayed launch of the standard iPhone 18, which appears to have pushed some buyers toward the pricier Pro models instead of waiting. Price increases of more than $200 across many Chinese flagship phones also narrowed the price gap with Apple’s top-tier models, Lam said, making the iPhone Pro line look more competitive on value.
The strong launch came even as China’s broader smartphone market remained under pressure, with weekly sales down 17% year-over-year compared with the same week in 2025, and overall sales falling at a double-digit annual pace since July amid soft consumer demand and higher memory costs.
Apple has taken a “high-end in fall, mainstream in spring” approach this cycle, launching only the iPhone 18 Pro series and its first foldable device, the iPhone Duo, while pushing the more affordable standard iPhone 18 to next spring. The Duo has already become a market focal point of its own, with reports of a surge in foldable-phone interest in China since its announcement, even though foldables still make up only a small share of total smartphone sales there.
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