iPhone SE more than 3.4 million reservations in China

The iPhone SE, which was unveiled a week ago during a special event, is apparently very popular in China. According to a report from CNBC, the new 4-inch smartphone has managed to grab more than 3.4 million reservations, with a little over one day to go before the reservation window closes.

As always when talking about the Chinese market, you’ll see most news outlets report this number as “pre-orders”, however as a general rule in China these don’t work like they do elsewhere. They’re called reservations and no money changes hands before the actual purchase, unlike a ‘western’ pre-order where you generally do pay right when you make it.

This means that many people can reserve a new device, but that doesn’t guarantee that all of them will actually buy a unit in the end. Unfortunately it’s impossible to tell whether that’s the case in this situation too, but it is how things generally go in the Chinese market.

That doesn’t make the 3.4 million amount less impressive, it’s just unclear whether we can already count these as sales or simply the number of people who have shown interest in the iPhone SE.

The same report states that the most popular color version is gold, followed closely by rose gold. The iPhone SE starts at CNY 3,288 in China, which right now translates into $506. Not anywhere near the $399 starting price in the US, but not as high as the prices in Europe have turned out to be either. The handset will be out on March 31, which is this coming Thursday.

Source | Via