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the chill before dawn has not yet dissipated, but the battle drums of the mobile phone giants have already sounded - huawei and apple, which had a "mars-earth collision" at their press conferences, have ushered in the first round of competition after the release of their products.

on the release day, the iconic glass cube of the fifth avenue apple retail store, immersed in the colorful lights of apple intelligence, attracted countless believers to make a pilgrimage. although the madness of setting up tents to grab the first release is no longer there, people still lined up in front of the sanlitun apple store in the pouring rain.

at the same time, the same frenzy was also taking place in huawei mall and e-commerce flagship stores - more than 6 million people participated just to buy huawei's new tri-fold phone; on social media, the discussion was even more heated.

the duel between the two major mobile phone brands is undoubtedly a head-on collision of two technical schools: one insists on the previous design philosophy, while the other pursues innovative breakthroughs in form. this may be an important lesson for mobile phone manufacturers who continue to climb the high-end mountain.

apple disenchantment

outside the starbucks store in chengdu taikoo li, some people were wrapped in blankets, taking naps on folding chairs, while others were chatting in low voices in groups of three or five, occasionally glancing at the apple flagship store across the street. there, it was already crowded and bustling.

however, the air lacks the enthusiasm of previous years, and has an indescribable sense of coldness and anxiety.

a few months ago, apple officially announced that the iphone 16 series would be equipped with apple intelligence, which once ignited the hope of a revival in the smartphone market. however, the sales volume in the first week was like a bucket of cold water, waking up the industry's slightly impetuous fantasy.

data shows that the global sales of the iphone 16 series in the first week were only 37 million units, a decrease of about 12.7% from last year's iphone 15 series.

in the store, there are many new phones for display and experience, but only the basic iphone 16 can be purchased directly. but in fact, as in previous years, the iphone 16 and iphone 16 plus have been sold out on the first day of sale. some scalpers are still guarding the door, shouting to sell the broken phones: "how about the basic model? it's cheaper than the official price."

behind this is the subtle evolution of the scalper ecosystem - from "squatting in stores" offline to "squatting" online. some scalpers no longer snatch goods, receive goods, and hoard goods at the door of physical stores and make profits by increasing prices. instead, they accurately calculate the time to grab coupons on e-commerce platforms and take advantage of the platforms.

according to scalper ahua, on pinduoduo, the price of a 128gb iphone 16 is only 5,799 yuan, and the platform will issue 400 yuan coupons on time at 8 a.m. and 12 noon every day. once you successfully grab the coupon, the 128gb iphone 16 only costs 5,399 yuan, which is 600 yuan cheaper than the official price.

the same story also played out in taobao's "10 billion subsidies". the basic iphone 16 in some colors is priced at 5,399 yuan. scalpers use multiple accounts and even technical means to place orders in batches. later, they sold these phones at 5,599 yuan. although they earned a difference of 200 yuan per unit, it was still cheaper than the official channels.

"the current market is not as good as before. i can only earn hard-earned money, and sometimes i can only sell at the original price." ah hua said helplessly. he grabbed 5 mobile phones a few days ago, and after deducting various hidden costs, there was only less than 1,000 yuan in profit - the so-called "lying down and making money" has become a joke that is gradually fading away.

the pro/promax models, once considered cash cows, are now facing a cold market. on the day of release, most iphone 16 pro models could only be sold with a price increase of around 300 yuan, with little profit. as for the iphone 16 promax, which was once a profit maker and the most anticipated model, the market trend showed a trend of opening high and closing low on that day and in the following days.

the market is getting worse year by year, which is a chill in liu juncai's heart. according to liu juncai's recollection, in the past, when a new iphone was released, people would buy it even if the price was increased by several thousand yuan. at that time, as long as there was stock, there was no worry about not being able to sell it. "however, the current market environment is no longer the same as it used to be.

last year, even though it was jokingly called the "lost generation", the iphone 15 promax was still sold at a premium of 1,500 yuan by scalpers, and it was still hard to get one. however, this year the situation seems to have changed all of a sudden.

on the morning of the first day of sale, scalpers tried to sell iphone 16 pro max with a 1,000 yuan increase, but few buyers came. in the afternoon, they had to reduce the price increase to 600 yuan. even though there was a brief rebound during the period, it was still difficult to shake the downward trend of prices. the carnival of the past is no longer there.

there are many different opinions in the industry about the sluggish performance of the iphone 16 series. the mainstream view points the finger at the delayed launch of apple's ai, believing that this is the key reason for the decline in sales.

at the wwdc before this, apple had announced a high-profile partnership with openai to integrate gpt-4o into its ai service matrix. however, this plan has been repeatedly postponed, and the chinese version of apple intelligence will have to wait until 2025, and the specific partner and cooperation time are still undecided.

however, as an "old workhorse", liu juncai doesn't think so: "most of the domestic users who rush to launch the first product don't care about ai at all, and there is no need to wait for the us version of iphone 16. for users who really need gpt-4o, who doesn't have a channel to use it now? besides, if they really come for ai, wouldn't the us version of iphone 15 pro max, which costs just over 5,000 yuan, be more attractive?"

in liu juncai's view, the real turning point lies in the macroeconomic climate. at this stage, mass consumption is gradually returning to rationality, people are holding on to their wallets more tightly, and impulsive consumption is no longer popular - restraint and prudence have replaced the past enthusiasm and comparison.

in addition, the rise and step-by-step development of domestic mobile phone manufacturers in the high-end market has also eroded apple's market share to a certain extent. the biggest variable is the strong return of huawei - the huawei mate xt, which was released on the same day as the iphone 16 series, is the world's first mass-produced tri-fold model. it not only surpasses the iphone in terms of popularity and topicality, but also set off a more crazy buying craze in the secondary market.

the distance between huawei and moutai

since its launch, the price of huawei mate xt has skyrocketed, reaching over 100,000 yuan, and even approaching hundreds of thousands of yuan, making it a well-deserved new "electronic moutai". the extremely enthusiastic market has spawned many ways to play.

"to grab a mate xt, the commission is 2,000 yuan. if you fail to grab one, a full refund will be given." in a wechat group of a ticket grabbing service, agent li bo's brief message instantly caused a commotion in the group.

li boben is a veteran in the concert ticket grabbing circle. his team relies on scripts and high-performance servers to quickly obtain concert tickets. according to him, his team's success rate in grabbing concert tickets is generally over 70% as long as it is not a super popular show.

with the launch of huawei mate xt, he decisively "changed careers" and opened a mobile phone ticket grabbing service. "nowadays, popular concerts require real names, and even if you grab the tickets, you can't resell them, so you can only make a hundred yuan per order. in comparison, the profit of mate xt is obviously much higher."

however, people still underestimated the silent war behind the "electronic moutai" - on the day of the release, li bo received more than a hundred orders for grabbing the lottery, but in the end he only won three, which severely refreshed the perception of the difficulty of the grabbing lottery circle.

compared with the "70% destiny" proxy shopping service, scalpers obviously prefer a way of playing that has more control and profit space, such as keeping a close eye on the "yougou code".

the preferential purchase code is a priority purchase right issued by huawei mall. the holder can bypass the crazy rush to buy and directly lock in designated popular models, such as mate xt, without having to squeeze on the single-plank bridge with thousands of ordinary users.

"now the yougou code is hard currency, and one can be sold for 20,000 to 30,000 yuan." on the day of the sale, veteran scalper afeng revealed to photon planet that he had already recovered a batch of yougou codes from the xiangjie s9 owner group and other channels at a price of just over 10,000 yuan each, and was preparing to resell them at a higher price.

this reminds us of the past craze for sneakers and graphics cards. at that time, limited edition sneakers were sold at dozens of times the price, becoming financial derivatives in the hands of shoe dealers. ordinary users would find it difficult to get new shoes of the right size without the right of first refusal. in 2020, the graphics card market has skyrocketed due to the mining boom, and the must-buy codes issued by manufacturers have also become the prey of scalpers.

it is worth mentioning that the exclusive purchasing rights of the sneaker platform snkrs are distributed almost completely randomly. although the saying of "raising an account" has always been popular in the sneaker speculation circle, it still relies mainly on probability overall, while graphics card manufacturers obtain must-buy codes through live drops and lotteries.

according to afeng, huawei's preferential purchase code issuance logic is more "exclusive". as the saying goes, "fat water should not flow to outsiders", it is more targeted at "pure blood" users within its own ecosystem, such as wenjie m9 and xiangjie s9 car owners. on xianyu, there are even scalpers who encourage wenjie car owners to ask for preferential purchase codes from their "insiders" when they bought the car.

however, the heated hype and high premium did not last long and were soon exposed by reality.

a feng told photon planet that those mate xts with price tags of hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan are basically just for show, and the chances of actual sales are slim. "on the day of the sale, the actual sales price of a top-of-the-line huawei 3-fold model was only around 40,000 to 50,000 yuan."

on september 20, before the huawei mate xt was launched, lao zhou announced in his wechat moments that anyone who got a mate xt could buy it back at a high price. however, he kept silent about the recycling that night.

"the market is in a mess right now. i've asked the bosses above, but they don't dare to accept orders. we won't accept recycling yet, and we won't quote recycling prices." lao zhou said frankly: "the prices are ridiculously inflated. if you're lucky, you may meet a generous boss who will buy it right away, but if you don't meet that boss, you can only watch the price drop little by little."

in the following three days, the trend of the secondary market was just as lao zhou had expected. the nonsensical crazy premium soon faded away with time. the 512gb black huawei mate xt was the first to sound the clarion call for price cuts, and in just a few days the price dropped from 20,000 yuan to 5,000 to 6,000 yuan. other models were not spared, and the decline quickly spread to the entire line.

as of press time, the actual transaction price of huawei mate xt has generally fallen below 30,000 yuan. correspondingly, the price of the three-fold yougou code, which was once hyped up to 20,000-30,000 yuan, has gradually cooled down to the 8,000-9,000 yuan range.

those scalpers who hoarded goods and codes had to start a race against time. after all, the second-hand price of the huawei mate x5 collector's edition, which was priced at a premium of 6,000 yuan last year, has now fallen below 10,000 yuan, and the price fluctuation is much more drastic than that of the iphone 15 series in the same period.

end

the high-end track has always had different approaches - whether there is a premium or not, and how much the premium is, is not the only dimension to measure a brand's high-end performance. in fact, in addition to huawei and apple, brands such as oppo and honor have also staged a secondary market premium drama in the early stage of the release of new phones.

tracing back to the source, the scarcity of the first release day or the initial release is highly tied to the spot quantity. in other words, as long as there is a small amount of stock, it will naturally cause "hunger", and out of stock and premium are natural. sometimes, the so-called "popularity" is more because of "smallness" rather than "good quality".

however, true high-end products are never supported by temporary scarcity. short-term popularity can be artificially created through hunger marketing and hype, but what supports long-term loyalty is always the invisible product core and brand value.

looking at apple and huawei, although their release cycles overlap, their routes in the high-end market are completely different.

huawei mate xt is aimed at "a minority of people". looking through the official introduction of xt, whether it is the "rock vein texture" or "black gold waistline" and other design languages, they all exude a "high-end and classy" texture, and even have the shadow of the former 8848 mobile phone. however, huawei xt is not a pure ostentatious luxury, its technical strength is obviously far beyond those brands that live in tv commercials.

although the concept of tri-fold is not new from a supply chain perspective, the phantom ultimate 2 launched by transsion at ifa 2024 in august is a tri-fold concept phone, but huawei's breakthrough lies in the realization of mass production.

the key to achieving mass production lies not in technology but in determination.

it is reported that other mobile phone manufacturers are also exploring hardware forms, such as xiaomi and transsion, which are constantly researching three-fold models, or samsung, which is actively preparing for the roll-up screen. however, due to the limited penetration rate and shipment volume of folding screens at this stage, this exploration is likely to be "a thankless task".

in contrast, huawei has more reasons. analyst ming-chi kuo once pointed out that the performance of the processor is inferior to that of its competitors, which limits huawei's choices in the high-end market. this may also be the core motivation for huawei to take the lead in launching a three-fold mass-produced machine. in the era of overperformance, this differentiation strategy is understandable. even in the context of the rapid rise of ai, maximizing its own advantages is also a rational competitive logic.

in other words, other mobile phone manufacturers may not have enough motivation and determination to realize the mass production of tri-fold. even if they put it into mass production, whether they can get the same attention and tolerance as huawei is still in doubt. after all, huawei has surpassed the traditional logic of the mobile phone industry, just like moutai and liquor, which often do not belong to the same track.

in contrast, apple has chosen a completely different route.

looking at the iphone 16 series, the similarity between the basic version of the iphone 16 and the pro version has reached a peak in recent years. whether it is upgrading the processor from the generational difference of the iphone 15 series a16/a17 pro to the same generation of a18/a18 pro, or the newly added camera button, ai and other functions, apple seems to be deliberately shortening the boundary between ordinary and high-end in this iteration. according to media reports, apple also intends to squeeze a large tube of toothpaste into the next generation of products.

in addition, the basic version of iphone 17 is equipped with a 120hz screen.

this may be a "conspiracy" to save sales by popularizing high-end experience, narrowing the gap, maximizing the attractiveness of the product, and further expanding the audience.

in the final analysis, for other mobile phone manufacturers who aspire to climb the high-end market, faced with two high-end samples, the mass-market route and the "luxury" route, there may be only one answer to follow. but the better choice is always to find a path that belongs to you.