MacRumors, citing Counterpoint Research, reported that iPhone 18 Pro models in China sold 12% more in the first three days after launch than iPhone 17 Pro models did in their entire first week last year.
That early demand briefly pushed Apple to the top of China’s smartphone market for the week of Sept. 14 to 20, giving the company a 33% share, according to the same MacRumors report.
MacRumors added one reason Apple’s China performance could stay in focus this month: the iPhone Duo is scheduled to go on sale Oct. 23, and the outlet said Chinese consumers have shown stronger interest in foldables than buyers in many other markets. That launch date is attributed to MacRumors, not Apple in the supplied evidence.
A separate A20 leak is much less settled
A different iPhone 18-related report making the rounds has nothing to do with sales, and much more to do with guesswork.
Notebookcheck summarized a leaked solder-ball map that was analyzed by Weibo user 白饭炒白米饭. Based on that analysis, the standard A20 chip for the base iPhone 18 could use TSMC's N2 process, a 5-core GPU, a dual 16-core Neural Engine and a 96-bit memory bus, according to Notebookcheck's write-up.
But Notebookcheck also explicitly said those figures were speculation drawn from the map, not confirmed specifications. The sourcing chain matters: the claims originate with a Weibo user's interpretation of a leaked image, were picked up by Notebookcheck, and were then echoed in posts including this one on X. In the supplied evidence, none of that amounts to a confirmed Apple statement or an official spec sheet.
If there's a cleaner takeaway here, it's that the China sales report and the A20 chatter say very different things. One is a market-performance claim attributed to Counterpoint Research via MacRumors. The other is an unconfirmed leak analysis about what Apple might put in the base iPhone 18 next year, if the underlying map and the Weibo interpretation are accurate.
On the evidence provided, the stronger story is Apple's reported early momentum in China; the chip details are still firmly in rumor territory.
