Apple's latest offering for the smartphone community is its 4-inch iPhone SE, which was launched last March 21. The iPhone SE boasts a powerful processor, equaling that of the premium model, the iPhone 6s. The new phone is said to have gained 3.4 million pre-orders from China, with Rose Gold and Gold colors having the largest numbers of requests.

CNBC has reported that Apple's strategy of re-creating a smaller iPhone and a cheap one is paying off, especially in China. Retailers in the country reported that Suning gained 1,709,427 pre-orders, JD.com has 882,295 pre-orders while Gome has made 889,668 reservations. However, as the report stated, these are big numbers but not exactly groundbreaking.

The report added that retailers in China are saying that one factor that contributed to the phone's dull figures is the non-existence of great features. Other vendors trying to get pre-orders for the phone even have to slash off their own premium just to gain orders.

Reservations do not equate to the number of units sold. A little more time is needed in order to gauge the actual sales performance of the smaller iPhone. Just for comparison, the iPhone 6s sold 5.55 million units, while the iPhone 6s Plus sold 1.63 million units. Overall, close to 7.2 million iPhones were sold in China in a two-week period, as TalkingData reported.

CNET added that the Xioami Mi5 exceeded 16 million units on pre-orders when it was offered early in the month.

Based on other reports, the new iPhone does not offer any revolutionary technology because Apple's focus for the iPhone SE is on emerging markets like India, Russia, Brazil and China.

The iPhone SE is a 4-inch phone that offers a 64-bit A9 processor with M9 motion co-processor, 2GB RAM, and either 16GB or 64GB internal storage. It also offers a 12MP iSight main camera, capable of recording 4K videos. It also contains a fingerprint scanner and can provide faster LTE and WiFi connections.

Apple is boasting that is the most powerful 4-inch phone and is as fast as the iPhone 6s.

The iPhone SE is priced at US$399 for the 16GB variant and US$499 for the 64GB one.