Has the answer been given to the disparity in customer numbers?
Apple’s flagship store in Sanlitun
Apple’s flagship store in Sanlitun, Beijing
At 1 a.m. on Sept. 10, Apple China Standard Time its fall product launch with the theme “Bloom Moment.”. At the conference, Apple unveiled eight new products, including the iPhone 16 Series, Apple Watch Series 10 and Airpods 4.
As the first phone designed specifically for Apple Intelligence, the iPhone 16 has garnered a lot of attention, but the event did not deliver the“Disruptive development” expected. The iPhone 16 series includes the iPhone 16, iPhone 16plus, iPhone 16pro and iPhone 16pro Max. The main upgrades are the chip and the photo control button.
For video, Apple added a new button to take pictures. That is, press to wake up the camera quickly, long press start video. At the same time, the Capacitive sensing can adjust the camera parameters and the APP linkage by identifying the press pressure.
To tap into Apple Intelligence’s capabilities, all four of Apple’s phones come with A18 processors that use a second-generation 3-nanometer transistor. It is understood that the A18 chip can accommodate, run a number of large models generated. Apple said the A18 chip had a 30 percent improvement in CPU performance compared with the previous generation of the A16 Bionic chip. The chip supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, improved in-game graphics rendering, and more efficient access to the generated model.
In terms of AI features, Apple focused on five AI features of the iPhone 16 series. It mainly covers built-in writing tools, generating recall videos, setting priorities for notifications, Siri and visual intelligence upgrades, much of the overlap with features announced at the Global Developers Conference in June. In addition, Apple said that Apple Intelligence will be launched next month with the new iOS system, initially in English only, and will only be updated next year in Chinese, French, Japanese, Spanish and other languages.
The iPhone 16pro has a larger screen size and a narrower border than the iPhone 16. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16pro’s Siri is smarter, allowing users to search for personal text messages, extract summaries from audio recordings, and offer photography suggestions. Cameras and audio recording are also higher quality.
The iPhone 16 series has rarely seen a price increase. According to Apple’s China website, the prices of the four new phones are identical to those of the iPhone 15 series. The iPhone 16 and 16plus start at 5,999 yuan and 6,999 yuan, respectively, while the iPhone 16pro and iPhone 16pro Max start at 7,999 yuan and 9,999 yuan, respectively, for 256 GB.
The flagship store is deserted, and the iPhone 15pro is on sale for 1,000 yuan
On the morning of September 10, time finance arrived at Apple China’s official flagship store in Sanlitun. There are no iPhone 16 prototypes in the store, and the new models have not yet been officially launched. About a dozen customers, mostly in the tablet and computer showrooms, have visited the store. The opening of the conference has not yet led to a rise in mobile traffic.
Apple’s flagship store in Sanlitun, Beijing
Apple Beijing Sanlitun Flagship Store, Time Finance
Apple’s sales staff are optimistic about the market for the new iPhone, despite being derided by netizens as“Squeezing toothpaste”. An apple salesperson told time business, “This year’s pre-order phones definitely need to be snapped up.”.
The Salesman said that in the first three months of Apple’s launch, customers would come to the store to pick up the new phones, there would be little time for staff to drink water and meals would be limited to about 10 minutes. “On the first day a new phone goes on sale, the store usually stocks more than 10,000 phones and they are all taken out.”
“We expect to start working overtime after pre-sales this year, as we have in previous years,” he said, adding that people have not stopped buying iphones in recent years despite the widespread perception that they are less innovative.
Only the 15 and 15 Plus iPhone 15 models are available, and the iPhone 15pro has been taken off the iPhone 15 website. At the store, the iPhone 15pro is still on sale, with prices ranging from 6,999 yuan to 11,999 yuan. The iPhone 15pro models are priced 1,000 yuan lower than the starting price of 7,999 yuan to 12,999 yuan.
Nabila Popal, Senior Director of IDC’s global data and analytics team, said Apple’s challenges in China were clear. The new Apple smartphone has a lot to offer, but without full language support for Apple Intelligence, it’s hard to generate much growth. The effect would have been more to prevent Apple’s decline, which could have been much worse.
New products in Huawei are on sale, with more than 4m pre-orders
With a launch on the same day and no prototype yet on sale, Huawei’s flagship store in Wangfujing is a very different story.
At 14.30 pm, Huawei held a launch party to unveil Huawei Mate XT, a three-fold phone that yu described as “The most pioneering, innovative and disruptive”. The Huawei Mate XT will be available at 10.2 inches, 3.6 mm, 19,999 yuan for the 256GB version, 21,999 yuan for the 512GB version and 23,999 yuan for the 1TB version.
Time Finance saw the store filled with customers during the event. Sales staff said the Huawei Mate XT had a maximum number of offline reservations within a day of opening and advised customers to book online. Time Finance in a number of e-commerce platform to replace multiple receiving addresses found that Huawei Mate XT are out of stock.
The flagship store in Wangfujing, Huawei
Flagship store in Wangfujing, Huawei, photo by times finance
At 12:08 am on 7 September, Huawei announced that Huawei Mate XT had opened online and offline simultaneous booking. As of press time, Huawei Mall shows that the number of Huawei Mate XT reservations has exceeded 4 million.
The salesperson said, whether online or offline, even if the booking is successful, can not guarantee the specific arrival date of the phone. He said the Huawei Mate XT was booked with a registration of intent rather than an actual booking. That is, customers leave their mobile phone number, and do not need to pay a deposit. Asked about the store reservations and the number of stock, said the above staff is not convenient to disclose.
During Time Finance’s visit to another Huawei Experience store in Chaoyang District, suspected scalpers came in to ask about the arrival of Huawei Mate XT. Sales staff at the store told time business that scalpers often patronize the store and that they are usually dressed simply and carry large backpacks that are easy to identify.
He said the brand had limited one person to one Huawei Mate XT, but could not resist the hype.
Time Finance noted that in some second-hand transactions and e-commerce platforms, Huawei Mate XT Xuan Black 16GB + 1TB models have been fried to 98,999 yuan a unit.
A number of Huawei salespeople told time business that the Huawei Mate XT must have had a premium in its initial public offering, and that “By the time the market premium disappears, there will be more than enough to go around”.
The launch of Apple’s new products in Huawei comes a day after Counterpoint data showed that hung Meng’s market share in Huawei surpassed iOS as the second-largest operating system for the first time, thanks to strong sales of its flagship product in the country.
In addition, Apple’s share of the Chinese smartphone market shrank 19.1 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year earlier, and fell another 5.7 percent in the second quarter. By contrast, the recovery in the Huawei is more pronounced. In the first half of the 2024 year, Huawei shipped 22.2 m units in the Chinese mainland market, up 55.2 per cent year on year.