No, 7 written as '7' never means 'penis', not even in Hong Kong...

The current prize winner for most desperate attempt to earn negative attention during an iPhone launch goes to Quartz:

The slogan for Apple's new iPhone 7 translates into "This is penis" in Hong Kong.

7 written as 7 always and only means 7. It also doesn't "translate" into anything in Hong Kong.

I only took Cantonese, the language spoken in Hong Kong and Guangdong, for a year — the tones were too complex and I switched to Mandarin for another two years — but for obvious reasons I was taught about sound collisions early on, including this one. At least enough to call bullshit on Quartz:

When pronounced in Cantonese, if you didn't actually speak Cantonese and got it wrong, you could mistakenly say a very similar sound that means "penis", same way that if you said 4 in Cantonese you could mistakenly say a very similar sound to "death", but that's a factor of the language, not of Apple's marketing.

Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.