The photo taken on September 18, 2022 shows customers at an Apple store in Yichang, Hubei Province. Photo: VCG

Apple was fined 200,000 yuan ($28,130) by Beijing's market regulator for publishing false advertisement on May 24.
 
The relevant authorities noted that the advertisement on Apple's official website targeting its MacBook Air on February 14, 2022 used description such as " 8-core central processing unit (CPU) works fast enough with less power consumption," and "M1 chip has the fastest CPU we've built to date," with the tag of "advertisement" on the page.

Following a review, the market regulator found out that the advertised "fastest CPU" did not align with the facts. The MacBook Pro, released in October, 2021, was previously equipped with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips with 10-core CPU, which can run at up to 70 percent faster than M1.

As the result, the market regulator concluded that the M1 chip equipped CPU was not the fastest processor that Apple had placed on the market. Publicizing the MacBook Air equipped with M1 chip with the description of "the fastest CPU we've built to date" was not in line with the fact as the MacBook Pro series were retailed at the same time.

The market regulator from Beijing's Dongcheng district ordered Apple to rectify the aforementioned misleading information, stop publishing the advertisement, eliminate the influence within the corresponding scope, and imposed on the company a fine of 200,000 yuan, in accordance with the country's Advertisement Law.

Apple on May 4 announced its financial results for the second quarter of the 2023 fiscal year ended on April 1, 2023, with revenue of $94.8 billion, down three percent year-over-year.

Global Times