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huawei and apple's new product launch conferences met head-on, who won?

on september 10, beijing time, huawei and apple held new product launch conferences at the same time. apple held a new product launch conference at 1 a.m. and released the first mobile phone equipped with apple intelligence, the iphone 16 series, with a starting price of 5,999 yuan. huawei held the "see the extraordinary brand ceremony" at 2:30 p.m. and released the world's first mass-produced three-folding screen mobile phone, huawei mate xt extraordinary master, with a starting price of 19,999 yuan.

not only is the press conference "colliding", but the sales time is also set on september 20. the difference is that at present, huawei mate xt extraordinary master has opened reservations, while apple iphone 16 series will not open pre-orders until 8 pm on september 13.

after the online press conference, what about the offline battle? on the afternoon of september 10, after huawei's new product press conference, reporters visited huawei and apple's direct stores in shenzhen and found that there was a long queue at the entrance of huawei's flagship store in mixc world. there were more than 100 people queuing upstairs and downstairs, all of whom were consumers who wanted to register their intention to purchase huawei mate xt.

a long queue formed at the entrance of huawei's flagship store in mixc world. photo by an yufei

in sharp contrast, the entrance to apple yitian holiday plaza store was empty. a clerk told reporters that the iphone 16 series phones have not yet arrived at the store. according to past experience, long queues will only form in the store when the new phones are officially released on september 20.

apple yitian holiday plaza store, the entrance is empty. photo by an yufei

on a second-hand trading platform, the reporter saw that the current price of huawei mate xt master generally has a premium of 8,000 to 40,000 yuan, with the highest price marked at 65,000 yuan, and most of them are around 40,000 yuan; apple iphone 16 series generally has a premium of 600 to 2,000 yuan.

hundreds of people lined up to register, is the tri-fold phone "harder to get than mate 60 pro"?

at 5 pm on september 10, the reporter came to the huawei flagship store located in shenzhen mixc, which is huawei's first direct-operated store in the world. the reporter saw that there was a long queue at the door. the queue formed a right angle, and there was even a long queue upstairs. according to rough estimates, the total number of people in the queue reached hundreds.

huawei flagship store, with queues upstairs and downstairs. photo by an yufei

a consumer told the reporter: "we are queuing here to register our intention. if you don't need to register and just want to look at your phone, you can go directly into the store." the reporter then walked through the long line and entered the store, where he found that huawei's first tri-fold screen phone, the mate xt, was already on display in the store, with a speaker next to it explaining the selling points of the phone.

according to store sales staff, the huawei mate xt is a 10.2-inch tablet when unfolded. although it only has one more screen than traditional large folding phones, it can "twice as large" the picture when watching ppt and movies, because the horizontal version of the picture is more suitable for tri-fold phones.

in terms of price, the huawei mate xt 256gb version is priced at 19,999 yuan, the 512gb version is priced at 21,999 yuan, and the 1tb version is priced at 23,999 yuan. however, the store salesperson said: "it is not open for purchase yet, and the reservation is not open either. it is just an intention registration. leave your phone number and we will notify you when the reservation is open. the specific time is not yet clear."

why is it that the huawei flagship store is full of people when you only need to leave your phone number for the registration? the salesperson said: "because the registration is on our second floor, we will provide one-on-one explanations and experiences. we have a limited number of explanation staff and new phones, so you need to queue up to experience it."

when i arrived at the second floor of huawei's flagship store, i saw that it was full of customers holding huawei mate xt masters to experience it, and there were one-on-one explainers next to them. similar to the situation downstairs, there was also a long queue upstairs. the day when huawei's new folding phone was released was also the day for the store staff to "fight".

on the second floor of huawei's flagship store, one-on-one explanations and experience of new phones. photo by an yufei

the reporter then went to the huawei authorized experience store in shenzhen yitian holiday plaza. unlike the direct-sale store, there was no queue at the door, and customers gathered at the booth displaying the mate xt phone. the salesperson told the reporter: "now you can register for the intention, but there is no guarantee that there will be stock, because you can also see online that the number of reservations has exceeded 3 million. it is uncertain how much stock you can get offline. this phone may be harder to get than the mate 60 (pro)."

during the national day holiday in 2023, the reporter visited several huawei authorized experience stores in shenzhen and found that the huawei mate 60 pro mobile phone was still as popular as ever one month after the "pioneer plan" was launched. both the huawei mate 60 pro and pro+ were in a state of "hard to get one". therefore, the huawei mate 60 pro series has become a yardstick for sales staff to measure the "hardness of mobile phones".

judging from the online reservation situation, as of 19:30 on september 10, the number of people who have made reservations for huawei mate xt has reached 4.348 million. an industry insider told reporters that since this "reservation" does not require payment, it may not truly reflect the popularity of huawei's three-fold screen mobile phone. the specific impact of this mobile phone on the high-end mobile phone market depends on the actual purchase situation.

there is no queue outside the apple flagship store. can the new phone boost sales?

around 17:30 on the afternoon of september 10, the reporter arrived at the apple yitian holiday plaza store, which is apple's first direct-sale store in south china. however, in stark contrast to the long queues at the entrance of the huawei flagship store, there was no one at the entrance of the apple direct-sale store.

walking into the store, there are still many consumers trying out apple products. the store staff told reporters: "the iphone 16 series has not yet arrived in the store, so not many people come to experience it. pre-orders will be open on september 13, and the official release will be on september 20. according to past experience, there will be people lining up early on the 20th."

consumers are trying out products at apple yitian holiday plaza store. photo by an yufei

earlier on september 22, 2023, the reporter visited the store and found that a large number of people lined up at 7 a.m., waiting for the store to open at 8 a.m. to buy the new iphone 15 series. for apple stores, the flow of people usually peaks on the day when the new mobile phones are officially released.

according to information from apple's press conference, the starting price of the iphone 16 equipped with the new a18 chip is 5,999 yuan, the starting price of the iphone 16 plus version is 6,999 yuan, the starting price of the iphone 16 pro version equipped with the a18 pro chip is 7,999 yuan, and the starting price of the iphone 16 pro max version is 9,999 yuan.

in addition to the upgrade of chips, the iphone 16 series is also apple's first ai phone, equipped with apple intelligence, but the timetable for the launch of this feature in china has been scheduled for next year. apple said that apple's artificial intelligence will be launched in the us market in october, and in english-speaking countries (such as australia, canada, new zealand, south africa, the united kingdom, etc.) in december, and will be launched in china, france, japan, spain and other places starting next year.

nabila popal, senior director of idc's global data and analysis team, said that since apple intelligence does not have complete language support, it is difficult for new products to bring much growth, and its impact is more to prevent apple's decline.

chen jia, an independent international strategy researcher, said: "according to the results of our survey, many users of the iphone 15 series at home and abroad, and even users of the iphone 14/13 series, are mostly waiting and watching, and do not have a particularly strong urge to change their phones."

chen jia believes that the sales of the iphone 16 series should be better than the iphone 15 series because of its larger screen, larger battery and the introduction of ai, but it is difficult to reach the "sales miracle" of the iphone 13 series. apple needs to rely on the upgrading of products such as ipad and mac to maintain its product strength.

at present, from the perspective of the chinese market, huawei has temporarily taken the lead in the battle between huawei and apple. idc data shows that in the second quarter of 2024, huawei's shipment share in china reached 18.1%, and shipments increased by 50.2% year-on-year. throughout the first half of the year, huawei ranked first in smartphone shipments with a market share of 17.5%. in the second quarter of 2024, apple's shipments have fallen out of the top five in the chinese market.

guo tianxiang, research manager of idc china, said: "ai is unlikely to become the main driving force for consumers to change their phones in the short term. performance, imaging, appearance, battery life and price are still the main considerations for consumers when choosing a phone."