Coinciding with Double 11, the iPhone 16 has its first official promotion, just one month after its official release.
On the evening of October 21st, the official flagship store of Tmall Apple Store started selling in stock. With additional subsidies such as platform coupons and trade in programs, the highest discount for the iPhone 16 series can reach 1600 yuan.
According to the official flagship store promotion of Tmall Apple Store, products such as iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Air Pods, etc. all enjoy varying degrees of discount. Among them, the entire iPhone 16 series can receive a 500 yuan coupon, with a starting price of 5499 yuan after the coupon. The starting price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max has been reduced to 9499 yuan, which is close to the price of third-party channels.
Starting from 8pm on October 21st, JD's iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, and other products will have their prices immediately reduced by 500 yuan, and a one-year Apple Care+worth 649-799 yuan will be given away for free; The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro have also dropped by 500 yuan.
In this Double 11 shopping festival, Pinduoduo also launched a significant promotion, with its iPhone 16 priced from 5399 yuan after a billion yuan subsidy, discounted by 600 yuan; IPhone 16 Pro Max coupon starts at 9249 yuan, with a discount of 750 yuan.
It is worth mentioning that since last year's iPhone 15 series, the official price reduction has been significantly advanced. In January of this year, Apple's official website reduced the price of iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max, which will be released around April, for a limited period of time, with a maximum discount of 500 yuan.
After the release of the new phone, the price was reduced nearly four months ago. At that time, a salesperson from an Apple store claimed that this "price reduction across the entire range of new phones has almost never happened before". In contrast, the iPhone 16 series' price reduction 'this time is only about a month away from the release of this series of phones.
In fact, since the pre-sale of iPhone 16 on e-commerce platforms began in September, it has encountered a situation where it has fallen below the issue price. On September 14th, Pinduoduo offered a subsidy of 100 billion yuan for the iPhone 16 series, with a starting reduction of 400 yuan and a maximum direct reduction of 1000 yuan. Among them, the initial launch price of iPhone 16 on the official website starts at 5999 yuan, and the subsidy price of Pinduoduo starts at 5399 yuan, a direct decrease of 600 yuan; IPhone 16 Plus (512GB), with a starting price of 9999 yuan on the official website and a subsidy price of 8999 yuan from Pinduoduo, saves 1000 yuan.
According to recent data from market research firm Counterpoint, compared to the 2023 iPhone 15, the sales of iPhone 16 in the Chinese market increased by 20% in the first three weeks after its launch. Among them, the sales of iPhone 16 Pro Max increased by 44% compared to the corresponding version of iPhone 15 last year.
However, the release of the new iPhone 16 still has limited impact on the domestic sales of iPhones. In the past three weeks, the total sales of iPhones in China have decreased by 2% year-on-year, due to factors such as the decline in sales of older phones and intensified competition with Huawei Mate and Pure series phones.
This Double 11, Huawei also has multiple phones participating in the promotion. Among them, the Huawei Pura 70 Pro+16GB+512GB version, which was released at the end of April this year, has a price discount of 2221 yuan, reducing the selling price from 7999 yuan to 5778 yuan. According to the official Weibo account of Huawei's terminal customer service, during the Double 11 shopping festival, Huawei's official refurbished products were directly reduced by 2000 yuan from their peak price.
The recent reboot issue of iPhone 16 has also had a negative impact on the sales of the iPhone series.
According to Global Times Technology citing foreign media reports, many iPhone 16 users have recently complained on Reddit, MacRumors forums, and Apple Support Communities that their phones have issues with random restarts. The report points out that this issue has been present since the release of the iPhone 16 series in September and has yet to be resolved.
An industry analyst said that if iPhone sales continue to show weak performance, or if AI functions fail to effectively drive users to switch phones, Apple may accelerate the launch of foldable screen phones for promotional purposes to attract consumer attention.