On 16 September 2022, a line formed outside Apple’s Shenzhen store for the iPhone 14 series. The South China Morning Post reported long queues and immediate reseller mark-ups even as China’s wider smartphone market weakened. The crowd included customers collecting reservations as well as buyers seeking walk-in stock or a quick resale premium.
Shenzhen is one of the world’s central electronics-manufacturing cities. Devices move through supply chains around it, yet obtaining a finished phone as a consumer still required entry into a retail sequence. Fast logistics from factory to shop did not guarantee equal availability of every model, storage size and colour. The queue divided according to reservation status and the stock remaining at the door.
The striking feature was therefore not demand alone, but the overlap of production city and consumption city. A boxed phone may have travelled only a modest distance to reach the store. Its buyer still had to cover the final metres at the pace set by inventory and a pickup number.