New sierra blue, pink iPhones sell out quickly: PChome

Taipei, Sept. 18 (CNA) Apple's strategy to add new colors to its latest iPhone lineup got off to a good start when preorders began in Taiwan on Friday, as the sierra blue iPhone 13 Pro and the pink iPhone 13 sold out in just two minutes, according to e-commerce PChome.

PChome did not disclose, however, how many iPhone 13s it provided for preorders. Taiwan is one of more than 30 countries included in Apple's first round of global sales for the new iPhones and likely only received a limited allotment of the devices.

PChome said the iPhone 13 series will officially go on sale on its platform on Sept. 24 at 8 a.m., and consumers around Taiwan will receive their phones within 24 hours after their transactions are completed.

On Tuesday California time, Apple unveiled the latest iPhone 13 series ‒ the 5.4-inch iPhone 13 mini, the 6.1-inch iPhone 13, the 6.1-inch iPhone 13 Pro, and the 6.7-inch iPhone Pro Max ‒ with new color designs.

The iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 mini are available in pink, blue, midnight, starlight, and red, and the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max are available in gold, silver, graphite and sierra blue. Pink and sierra blue are the newest offerings.

The iPhone 13 mini carries a starting price tag of NT$22,900 (US$826.71), the standard iPhone 13 starts at NT$25,900, the iPhone Pro starts at NT$32,900, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max starts at NT$36,900.

The high-end iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max can come with data storage capacity of up to one terabyte (TB), the first time the iPhone lineup can provide that much storage, equal to 1,024 GB.

That storage comes at a price, however. The 1TB iPhone 13 Pro will cost NT$54,400, the most expensive iPhone ever.

Apple Taiwan's website showed that the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max with larger storage capacities were the most popular models during preorders.

Though no figures were available on how many iPhone 13s were sold, one of the barometers for the popularity of the new models will be whether consumers who have pre-ordered a phone can pick it up at an Apple store on Sept. 24 when the iPhone 13s first hit store shelves.

On the Apple website, many consumers who reserved the gold iPhone 13 Pro and the sierra blue iPhone 13 Pro with 1 TB storage about 20 minutes after the preorder sale began were told they would not receive their new phones in person in any Apple store on Sept. 24.

The same message was given to people who reserved the largest iPhone 13 Pro Max with a 1TB storage capacity in any of the four colors available, the Apple website showed.

The iPhone 13 has a smaller display cutout at the top of the screen, as well as larger batteries that provide the devices with between 1.5 and 2.5 more hours of battery life than last year's models depending on device size, Apple said.