news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

driving two hours from the eastern united states to canada, shane, born in 2000, travels back and forth across the border, busypurchase the “non-castrated version” of iphone 16 for “apple fans” in china.

on september 15, xie en posted a product promotion post on a second-hand platform. in less than three days, more than 90 users had inquired about it. customers ordered the us or canadian version of iphone 16 online, and she was responsible for driving back. "if there are many customers placing orders, i will charge 600 yuan per person. if there are few people placing orders at a time, i will charge 800 yuan."

to shane’s surprise, many users specifically asked for the us version of the iphone 16, not because the us version is priced lower than the domestic version, but because the us version is the first to be equipped with apple’s ai function.

xie en, who is studying in the united states and originally thought that he would "drive to buy a us version of iphone and find someone to share the gas money", now receives 99+ in the background information almost every day, while most customers are located in china. "compared to paying 1,000 yuan more to grab the first release from domestic scalpers, i would rather pay more and wait to get the non-castrated version of iphone 16."

"the last time so many people wanted to buy a us-made iphone was the iphone 4."shane laughed.

in june 2010, iphone 4 was released. mainland china was not the first market for the product. the chinese version was not available for sale until september of that year. in order to be the first among their friends to use an iphone, many apple fans sought to buy parallel imports from overseas. there were even rumors of "selling a kidney to buy an iphone 4". the first parallel import us iphone 4 was sold for a staggering 18,000 yuan in zhongguancun.

in the following years, the new iphone was basically released simultaneously around the world. in addition, due to the increasing convenience of overseas shopping through domestic e-commerce and the troublesome warranty of overseas versions of iphone, the parallel import iphone market gradually shrank.

today, the iphone 16 seems to have restarted the overseas shopping craze of the past.

the full set of ai capabilities that apple has built for the iphone 16 series became the highlight of the launch conference earlier this month. the us version of the iphone will support apple intelligence next month; but in china, apple intelligence that supports chinese will not be launched until 2025.

apple fan zhang ying said that she is willing to spend a premium of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan and hopes to buy the us version of iphone 16 pro max next month.

in contrast,the domestic version of iphone 16 has not become the target of scalpers.

on september 20, it rained heavily in beijing. from 8 a.m., people queuing to pick up iphone 16s surrounded the apple retail store in sanlitun. scalpers selling new phones also appeared at the door of the store, but the premium set for the new iphone was not outrageous.

"today, the price of iphone 16 pro max has increased by 1,000 yuan, and the price of huawei tri-fold (referring to huawei mate xt extraordinary master edition tri-fold screen phone) has increased by 20,000 yuan." a scalper squeezed in the queue told zimubang (id: wujicaijing),the domestic version of the iphone 16 is not priced well, and huawei's tri-fold is out of stock.

caption: apple fans at the sanlitun apple flagship store and other first releases source: photo by zizibang

"everyone knows that this year's iphone 16 series is likely to break even, so now we are just betting on a hit."

scalper zhang qi said frankly that after experiencing the dilemma of hoarding iphone 15 last year and being unable to sell it, he still stocked up on iphone 16 because he was betting that the iphone 16 series would be hyped up. "after all, the iphone 16 has become thinner and larger in appearance."

at present, e-commerce platforms such as pinduoduo, jd.com, and taobao all provide subsidies for new iphones. take the iphone 16 pro 256g as an example. the price on apple's official website is 8,999 yuan, and pinduoduo and jd.com both subsidize 400 yuan. in zhang qi's view, this“it’s like breaking even right after it was launched.”

apple fan yuanyuan has long planned to replace her iphone 12 with the new 16, not only because the phone is already due for a replacement, but also because she was attracted by the iphone 16's telephoto camera function.

however, compared with the adjustment of the appearance, the new feature that yuanyuan is most excited about is the camera control button of iphone 16. "one button can start the camera to take pictures, and ai recognition at the same time makes it very convenient to take ppt in class or go out."

however, since the ai ​​function of the new iphone will not be available in china until 2025, yuanyuan does not plan to launch it first on the official website or e-commerce platform. "when we wait until double eleven, the price can be reduced by another 500-1,000 yuan."

figure caption: scalper price list source: screenshot of alphabet list

apple fans are becoming more and more rational, which seems to make it increasingly difficult to hype up the new iphone.

according to wall street journal, apple's iphone 16 series inventory data guidance has been updated to 88 million units, roughly the same as the iphone 15 series. however, the sales of 37 million units in the first week seem to be lower than apple's expectations.

analyst ming-chi kuo pointed out that the shipping time of the iphone 16 pro series is significantly lower than that of the 15 pro series. in addition to the increase in inventory before pre-orders, the key reason is that demand is lower than expected, judging from the 12.7% year-on-year decrease in sales in the first weekend.

as a veteran scalper, as early as september 19, zhang qi offered customers an iphone 16 at a price lower than the official website price, "reducing the price by 100-200 yuan, and cash on delivery by sf express on september 20." at the same time, zhang qi was able to deliver the goods to customers on september 19, "the iphone 16 pro 256g will be priced at 1,000 yuan more, and the highest 16 pro 1t will be priced at 2,000 yuan more."

but,as apple's functional innovations have become less and less, in the past two years, "the 1t version of the iphone can only sell at most ten out of a hundred units."zhang qi is not optimistic about this year's iphone 16.

on september 20, when the alphabet list came to the apple sales point in sanlitun, beijing, a scalper named lao du said that at 8 a.m., it was raining heavily, and the line was already three layers deep outside the store. in addition to the scalpers, most of the people came to pick up the first-released iphone 16. apple retail stores only allow customers who have already grabbed the first-release to enter.

within a few minutes of stopping to watch, alphabet list was asked by no less than four scalpers whether he was selling or buying the iphone 16.

whenever a customer walks out of the store holding an apple white handbag, there are always scalpers who come up and raise the price on the spot. "the iphone 16 pro generally increases by 300-500 yuan. there are too many desert gold phones in stock, so the price increase is at most 200 yuan. the iphone 16 pro 1t can be increased by 600 yuan." lao du said that the transferred iphone 16 will also be sold on the spot at a premium of no less than 800-1000 yuan to individual customers who did not get the first release.

compared with the lukewarm performance of the iphone 16, the huawei tri-fold phone, which was officially released on the same day, was much more popular and has become the new "electronic moutai".

"stocking up on apple products will steadily pay back the investment, but the dividends are getting smaller and smaller; stocking up on huawei products will earn you a lot with just one order," zhang qi said with a smile.nowadays, whether or not one can stock up on huawei's tri-fold phones has become a new standard for scalpers to test each other's wealth.

the huawei tri-fold, which is priced at 21,999 yuan on the official website, is not only not available in huawei's offline stores, but is also "hard to find" online. before the official sale, the number of people who made reservations for this phone on huawei mall exceeded 6 million. after the sale started at 10 a.m. on september 20, all versions were sold out in seconds, and huawei mall currently shows that it is temporarily out of stock.

"two days ago, the highest price of huawei's tri-fold phone was 180,000 yuan per unit,"therefore, there are not many scalpers who have the means to buy user codes and can stock up on the tri-fold. zhang qi avoided the trend and ordered two units. "on september 19, the 1tb red model was priced at 51,000 yuan, a markup of nearly 30,000 yuan."

"i clicked in at 10:00, but the page crashed before i had time to pay," zheng qiu, a consumer attracted by the tri-fold screen, told alphabet list. as an apple user, he was also very curious about the tri-fold screen and wanted to buy two for his parents as national day gifts. but when he logged in again at 10:08, the page kept displaying "too many visitors" and "loading", and then it prompted that it was out of stock.

at the same time, "huawei tri-fold in-depth review" became a hot search on weibo, and a 10-minute long review video by a technology blogger was played over 100,000 times in just 2 hours. on the xiaohongshu platform, under the keyword #how to buy huawei tri-fold screen mobile phone#, there are as many as 310,000 related notes.

after the sale started at 10:00, the premium of this phone was reduced - the 1tb red model was 48,000 yuan, and the black model was 42,000 yuan.zhang qi still sold 2 orders and made a net profit of nearly 40,000 yuan.

"i got a huawei tri-fold phone, so i can relax and unwind for the whole month." on september 10, a junior student who had made an appointment for a huawei tri-fold phone told zizibang. then a scalper added 20,000 yuan to the price and took it away.

on social media platforms, grabbing the huawei tri-fold was jokingly called "an opportunity to make $10,000 for nothing", the new code to wealth: "you don't have to use it, but you have to grab it."

figure caption: huawei's three-fold foldable phone becomes electronic moutai source: screenshot of alphabet list

analyst ming-chi kuo pointed out that the latest supply chain survey showed that huawei's tri-fold smartphone has high market demand and popularity, and the 2024 shipment forecast has doubled from 500,000 units to 1 million units.

although compared with apple iphone's shipments of tens of millions, huawei's tri-fold phone is more like "scarcity makes it valuable", but with its gimmicky tri-fold phone, huawei not only quickly became popular, but also gained popularity for its new flagship mate 70 series.

as consumers cut back on spending and stop frequently replacing their phones with the latest models, "seeking novelty" seems to be the only way out for mobile phone manufacturers.

huawei chose to sell the new tri-fold phone on the same day as the iphone 16 went on sale, which became the biggest highlight of the domestic mobile phone market in september. apple deeply integrated the iphone 16 series with ai, and ai became the killer feature of the iphone's innovative user experience.

butthe differences in ai suppliers in different regions have also caused apple fans to worry about "the goods not being what they claim to be".

at the apple developer conference in june this year, apple announced a partnership with openai and plans to integrate its gpt-4o into ios 18, ipados 18, and macos sequoia. however, due to regulatory requirements in various countries, openai cannot become apple's global ai partner.

in china, media reported on june 20 that apple has held talks with chinese ai big model companies such as baidu, alibaba, and baichuan intelligence to seek local cooperation.

"i want to buy an iphone 16 because of the cooperation between apple and openai. after all, openai's gpt-4o is the world's best ai model." apple fan yuanyuan told alphabet list that as a college student, she uses ai big models to translate, analyze, and organize papers almost every day. compared with domestic big models, openai's database is more comprehensive, and the output results are more accurate when analyzing overseas literature.

yuanyuan is worried that if she buys the chinese version, will she be able to experience the same ai functions as gpt-4o at the press conference?"if i buy the domestic version and it turns out to be a different product, how will i get after-sales service?"

"unlike hardware, apple can control parts standards by building factories. however, it is difficult for apple to judge the ai ​​capabilities of different suppliers using unified standards." a large model practitioner told alphabet list that although ai has become the biggest gimmick of the iphone 16, the ai ​​functions in different regions will inevitably differ due to different suppliers, and this problem cannot be solved in the short term.

more importantly, ai is not apple's unique weapon.

according to public data, samsung accounts for 36% of the global ai mobile phone market in the second quarter of 2024, and xiaomi ranks second with 22%. google, vivo, oppo, huawei and other companies have also announced the launch of ai mobile phones.

samsung, the first company to launch ai smartphones, not only can generate photos with one click, but also has built-in real-time translation for calls, enabling cross-language communication, etc. last quarter, samsung retained its global sales champion, with a market share of 20%. counterpoint believes that all of samsung's achievements are mainly due to its innovative application of ai technology, especially the best-selling samsung galaxy s24 series.

in contrast, apple's share in the smartphone market is facing challenges. although apple made an exception and implemented a large price cut in may this year, it is still difficult to reverse the downward trend.

for domestic users, apple's gradual implementation of apple intelligence makes it difficult for apple fans to experience the benefits of ai technology in a short period of time. with double 11 approaching, whether apple will adopt a more radical price reduction strategy and whether ai can become apple's life-saving medicine remains unknown.

(lao du, yuanyuan, zhang qi, and xie en are pseudonyms in this article)