iPhone Launch Frenzy: Why UAE Shoppers Wait Hours for New Models
Hundreds of UAE residents lined up outside Apple stores across Dubai on Friday morning, some sleeping in their cars overnight, all chasing the same goal: getting the new iPhone 18 Pro or Pro Max in hand on launch day, even though the phone can be ordered online and delivered within minutes.
For Pakistani expat Sadaf, showing up on launch day has become a family tradition. She queued with her sister-in-law and their two-year-old niece to collect three devices, saying they’ve been doing it for years but still haven’t cracked the code on how to get the very first slot on launch morning. She’s already planning to try again when Apple’s next device launches in October.
According to Dr. Sarah Percy, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Birmingham Dubai, the wait itself has become part of the appeal rather than an inconvenience. She said being among the first to own the latest model signals psychological value tied to identity, exclusivity and belonging, extending far beyond the phone itself, with the early alarm, the wait and the shared excitement with strangers all becoming part of the story buyers tell afterward.
Dr. Rumaila Abbas, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Wollongong Dubai, pointed to a consumer-behavior paradox at play: while marketers typically try to eliminate waiting, a visible queue outside a store can actually work in a brand’s favor. She said seeing others queue is social proof in its rawest form, signaling to passersby that the product is worth having, and research suggests people read others’ willingness to wait as a sign of a brand’s popularity, which raises their own expectations of the product.
Dubai resident Hanal arrived with her family to collect four devices, all upgrades from previous models the family had saved up months to afford individually. She said once the decision to buy is made, you might as well get it on the first day before everyone else has one, and the family walked away with two burgundy phones, one black and one blue.
That desire to have the device before everyone else appears to be amplified by social media, with influencers and celebrities helping turn a want into something closer to a need. Dr. Percy said influencer and celebrity content boosts the visibility of the new model by placing it among aspirational reference groups, increasing its social desirability, and when combined with visible queues, creates a powerful form of social validation that makes people want to act immediately.
Russian tourists Saiful Islam and Ive Sultana Molly timed their Dubai trip specifically around the launch. Saiful explained that since Russia imports the iPhone, it typically takes a few days before it becomes available there, so making the purchase in Dubai meant they’d be among the first to have it once they returned home. The couple flew back to Russia the same day.
Dr. Abbas said that for many buyers, the iPhone has become less about functionality and more about belonging to a broader brand community. During launch week, she said, consumers see celebrities appearing at Apple’s headquarters, creators discussing the new camera, friends posting their orders, and long lines outside stores, shifting the comparison away from their current phone versus the new one and toward whether they want to be part of the social experience surrounding the launch itself.
Color plays its own role in the ritual. Apple releases a so-called hero color each year, orange last year and burgundy this time around, and Dr. Percy said that while burgundy may carry associations with status and sophistication, the real driver behind the hero color is distinctiveness, acting as an immediate, recognizable signal that someone owns the newest model. She described Apple’s annual launch as a deliberate brand ritual built not just around how the product looks and feels, but around how it’s sold and experienced, with consumers themselves amplifying that social meaning through participation, sharing and early ownership.
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