A man dubbed "Brother Orange" who took selfies on an iPhone in China has become an online celebrity after the images appeared on the phone of a person living in the United States, more than 13,000 kilometers away.

The photos were sent to Matt Stopera in New York over Apple's iCloud picture sharing service. He had lost an iPhone early last year, and it is believed the handset found its way onto the secondhand market in China and was acquired by Brother Orange, according to a report in Beijing Youth Daily on Monday.

Stopera had signed into his iCloud account on the old phone before it went missing. He was checking the photos on his replacement iPhone when he found hundreds of images that he had not taken.

They included pictures of menus with Chinese characters, young women with black hair and a bald man posing by an orange tree, who Stopera jokingly referred to as Bro Orange online.

The incident was reported in the US, and a web user called Hereinuk then posted details of it on a Sina Weibo micro blog.

"Should Brother Orange see this, I will send him a new iPhone, and put him in touch with the American," Hereinuk said on Thursday.

Chinese netizens soon tracked down Brother Orange in Meizhou, Guangdong province.

On Saturday, Brother Orange opened a Weibo account, and said: "I don't sell oranges. A relative gave me the phone."

He invited Stopera to visit China, posting in both English and Chinese.

"Matt, welcome to our country," he said. "I am looking forward to seeing you and inviting you to taste our Meizhou cuisine."

Brother Orange attracted more than 35,000 followers within three days. His nephew told Beijing Youth Daily that some people even visited him to take group photos with him.

Hereinuk was quoted as saying, "When I posted the story, I thought we might have a 50 percent chance of finding Brother Orange."

He said on his micro blog that he had ordered a new iPhone and had it delivered it to Brother Orange.

Stopera started using Weibo as well. "Hello everyone!" he said. "Thank you so much for helping me find my phone and Bro Orange!

"This has been such a great journey and only possible because of all of you! It's a dream of mine to visit China and hopefully I will get to meet Bro Orange and see your country!"

Chinese web users were delighted by the happy ending.

"This is true love," one posted, and another, Quan Zhilin, said, "Amazing."