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the disparity in the number of customers, has the answer been given?

apple's flagship store in sanlitun, beijing. photo by times finance

at 1 a.m. beijing time on september 10, apple held an autumn new product launch conference with the theme of "highlight moments". at the conference, apple launched 8 new products including the iphone 16 series, apple watch series 10, and airpods 4.

as the first mobile phone designed specifically for apple intelligence, the iphone 16 has received widespread attention, but this launch did not bring the "disruptive progress" expected by the outside world. the iphone 16 series includes four mobile phones: iphone 16, iphone 16 plus, iphone 16 pro and iphone 16 pro max. the main upgrade points are chips and camera control buttons.

in terms of video recording, apple has added a new camera button. a single press can quickly wake up the camera, and a long press can start recording. at the same time, the capacitive sensor can adjust the camera parameters and link with the app by identifying the pressing force.

in order to access the apple intelligence function, the four mobile phones launched by apple this time are all equipped with the a18 processor using the second-generation 3-nanometer transistor. it is understood that the a18 chip can accommodate and run multiple large generative models. apple said that compared with the previous generation a16 bionic chip, the cpu performance of the a18 chip has increased by 30%. the chip supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which can improve graphics rendering in games and access generative models more efficiently.

in terms of ai functions, apple focused on introducing five ai functions of the iphone 16 series. they mainly cover built-in writing tools, generating memory videos, setting notification priorities, and upgrading siri and visual intelligence, which overlap with most of the functions released at the worldwide developers conference in june this year. in addition, apple stated that apple intelligence will be launched with the new ios system next month. initially, only the english version will be launched, and other language versions such as chinese, french, japanese, and spanish will be updated next year.

compared with the iphone 16, the iphone 16 pro has a larger screen and narrower bezels. at the same time, the iphone 16 pro's siri is smarter and can help users search for personal text messages, extract summaries based on meeting recordings, and provide shooting suggestions. the camera and audio recording quality is also higher.

the iphone 16 series rarely saw a price increase. according to information on apple's official chinese website, the pricing of the four new phones is exactly the same as the iphone 15 series. among them, the starting prices of the iphone 16 and iphone 16 plus are 5,999 yuan and 6,999 yuan respectively; the starting prices of the iphone 16 pro and iphone 16 pro max 256gb are 7,999 yuan and 9,999 yuan respectively.

flagship stores are deserted, iphone 15 pro price cut by 1,000 yuan

on the morning of september 10, times finance visited apple china's official flagship store in sanlitun, beijing. the store had not yet provided iphone 16 series prototypes, and the new products had not yet been officially released. there were about a dozen consumers visiting the store, and most of them were concentrated in the tablet and computer exhibition areas. the press conference has not yet led to an increase in mobile phone customer traffic.

apple flagship store in sanlitun, beijing photo by times finance

although netizens jokingly say that innovation is like "squeezing toothpaste", apple sales staff are still optimistic about the market performance of the new iphone. an apple sales staff told times finance that "it will definitely be a tough sell to reserve the phone this year."

the salesperson said that usually in the first three months after apple releases a new phone, there is a constant stream of consumers coming to the store to pick up their phones. the store staff barely have time to drink water, and their meal time is basically limited to about ten minutes. "on the first day of a new phone's release, the store usually has more than 10,000 phones in stock, and they are all taken away."

"after pre-sales start this year, it is expected that the work arrangements will be the same as in previous years, and we will be prepared to start working overtime." he believes that in recent years, public opinion has generally believed that apple's mobile phones are weak in innovation, but everyone seems to have not stopped buying them.

currently, only the 15 and 15 plus of the iphone 15 series are on sale, and the iphone 15 pro series has been removed from the official website. in the above-mentioned stores, the iphone 15 pro series is still on sale, with prices ranging from 6,999 yuan to 11,999 yuan. compared with the starting price of 7,999 yuan to 12,999 yuan, the iphone 15 pro series has been reduced by 1,000 yuan.

nabila popal, senior director of idc's global data and analysis team, believes that apple faces obvious challenges in the chinese market. the newly launched apple smartphones have many highlights, but since apple intelligence does not have complete language support, it is difficult for new products to bring much growth. its impact is more to prevent apple's decline, otherwise the situation may be worse.

huawei's new product is popular before it is sold, with the number of reservations exceeding 4 million

a press conference was held on the same day, and there were no prototypes and the product had not yet gone on sale. however, the huawei flagship store in wangfujing presented a completely different scene.

at 14:30 in the afternoon, huawei held a new product launch conference, and the huawei mate xt, a three-fold screen mobile phone that yu chengdong called "the most leading, innovative and subversive", was unveiled. the huawei mate xt is 10.2 inches at its largest when unfolded and 3.6mm at its thinnest. the 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. it will be officially launched at 10:08 on september 20.

times finance saw that the store was packed with customers during the press conference. the salesperson said that just one day after the pre-sale of huawei mate xt started, the store's offline reservation quota reached its limit, and customers were advised to make online reservations. times finance changed multiple delivery addresses on multiple e-commerce platforms and found that huawei mate xt was out of stock.

huawei wangfujing flagship store photo by times finance

at 12:08 on september 7, huawei announced that huawei mate xt will be available for simultaneous online and offline pre-orders. as of press time, huawei mall showed that the number of reservations for huawei mate xt has exceeded 4 million.

the salesperson said that no matter online or offline, even if the reservation is successful, the specific arrival date of the phone cannot be guaranteed. he said that the reservation method of huawei mate xt is intention registration, not real reservation purchase. that is, customers leave their mobile phone number and do not need to pay a deposit. when asked about the store's reservation quota and stock quantity, the above employee said it was inconvenient to disclose.

during a visit by times finance to another huawei experience store in chaoyang district, a suspected "scalper" entered the store to inquire about the arrival of the huawei mate xt. the store's salesperson told times finance that the store is often visited by scalpers, who are usually dressed simply and carry large backpacks, making them easy to identify.

he said that the brand has currently limited the purchase of one huawei mate xt per person, but it still cannot resist market speculation.

times finance noticed that on some second-hand trading and e-commerce platforms, the huawei mate xt black 16gb+1tb model has been sold for 98,999 yuan per unit.

several huawei sales staff told times finance that in the early days of its launch, the huawei mate xt must have a premium, "and by the time the market premium disappears, the supply will be basically sufficient."

the day before apple and huawei released their new products, counterpoint data showed that, thanks to the hot sales of huawei's flagship products, hongmeng's market share in china surpassed ios for the first time, becoming the second largest operating system.

in addition, in the first quarter of this year, apple's share of the chinese smartphone market shrank by 19.1% year-on-year, and fell again by 5.7% in the second quarter. in contrast, huawei's recovery trend is more obvious. in the first half of 2024, huawei's shipments in the chinese mainland market were 22.2 million units, a year-on-year increase of 55.2%.