Orange is the New Black: Why the iPhone 17 Pro is Dominating the Chinese Market
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Apple’s decision to go with an unusually vibrant color for its flagship iPhone 17 Pro models seems to be paying off in spades in one of the company’s largest markets.
While the “Cosmic Orange” iPhone 17 Pro was an unusual departure from six generations of more muted shades, it’s also been seen as a breath of fresh air among many consumers looking for something more whimsical in a high-end iPhone. However, nowhere has this become more true than in China, where this shade is viewed quite differently — and has consumers snapping it up like it’s going out of style.
Citing data from IDC researchers, the Financial Times reports that the design refresh has “reinforced Apple’s status-symbol position in China,” as consumers in that country associate it with the elite Hermès brand, leading Apple fans in that country to dub it “Hermès Orange” instead of Apple’s official “Cosmic Orange.”
“It sounds simple, but it’s the external obvious changes to design, which includes the introduction of a shout-out orange colour, that pulled out early upgraders,” IDC senior research director Nabila Popal told the Times.
During Apple’s Q1 2026 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook credited much of the iPhone’s sales performance to China, noting that while the iPhone had a healthy 23.3% growth overall from the 2025 holiday quarter, sales in China surged by an astonishing 38%, resulting in what Cook declared “the best iPhone quarter in history in Greater China.”
It is driven by the customer enthusiasm for the iPhone 17 lineup. And I would tell you that during the quarter, traffic in our stores in China grew by strong double digits year over year. It was a terrific quarter. Our installed base reached an all-time high in both Greater China and Mainland China. And we set an all-time record for the upgraders, and we saw strong double-digit growth on switchers.
Tim Cook
Cook didn’t elaborate on which models drove most of those sales. There may have been some pent-up demand from the delayed launch of the iPhone Air, which was didn’t arrive until October due to issues getting its eSIM-only design cleared by Chinese regulators. Analysts have observed the iPhone 17 has also done quite well thanks to a government subsidy program that makes lower-priced smartphones even more affordable. However, it seems the iPhone 17 Pro models played an outsized role.
It’s not clear if Apple chose the Cosmic Orange shade based on the likelihood of it becoming a hit in China, but Apple is also a company that does its homework. Cook said the iPhone sold much better in China than Apple anticipated, but that doesn’t mean its expectations weren’t already high — just that the reality beat even those.
China has long been known for its status-conscious consumers. The iPhone itself was once seen as a status symbol, but with more affordable models making the device almost ubiquitous in the country, Chinese buyers are looking for other ways to set themselves apart with phones that reflect affluence — and an iPhone that shares the color with one of the highest-end luxury brands in the world certainly qualifies.
“I was instantly drawn to the colour — it felt very special, who doesn’t like Hermès orange?” said model and influencer who goes by “Xiao Mei” — which feels like a cheeky phonetic nod to rival brand Xiaomi — while posing with her new phone in a TikTok video. “The more I look at it, the more I love it.”
Xiao Mei’s is just one of many similar videos that flooded Chinese social media platforms, with buyers highlighting the aesthetic and “lucky” color over the technical specifications and turning the iPhone 17 Pro into a high-end fashion statement.
‘May All Your Wishes Turn Orange’
The luxury brand color isn’t the only thing going for the iPhone 17 Pro. It turns out that many Chinese iPhone buyers are also associating the word “orange” with prosperity because the color “orange” (“chéngzi”) sounds like the word for “success” (“chéng”) in Mandarin. This has turned the iPhone into a literal good luck charm on social media.
iPhone fans in China have been having fun with the well-known phrase “X?n xi?ng shì chéng” — “may your heart’s desires come true” — punning it into “X?n xi?ng shì ‘chéng’” where the character for “success” is swapped for the identical-sounding word for “orange.” It’s a linguistic wink that translates to: “may your heart’s desires be orange.”
Then there’s the fact that it’s also readily identifiable as the newest and shiniest high-end iPhone. After four years of relatively staid updates, the iPhone 17 Pro sports a whole new design, and the orange makes it even more readily identifiable to onlookers that it’s the newest and more premium model.
“Picking orange means everyone knows this is the new iPhone 17. I’m just a badass,” said An Liang, a social media influencer who is admired for flaunting his wealth, in a sentiment that reflects the “Mianzi” (face) culture in China where social standing is tied to visible indicators of success.
It may also help that orange isn’t the only color this year. In another twist, Apple didn’t give up on its more “professional” shade — deep blue in this case. Instead, it phased out the classic black/gray neutral that’s been a mainstay of the lineup since the iPhone 3G launched in 2008. This lets the orange stand apart as a unique color, and not just the one that customers go for simply because they want something different from the boring neutrals.
Of course, there’s more to the iPhone 17 Pro taking off in China than merely a new splash of color. Apple packed in some healthy upgrades this year, with triple 48 MP cameras, plus the new design that makes it unique in any shade. Still, Apple appears to have pulled off a successful three-pronged attack here: using the subsidized iPhone 17 to capture the middle class, the Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro to appeal to the elite and upgraders via status signaling, and the iPhone Air to fill in the gap for those looking for something completely different.
