The picture shows the Apple flagship store in Beijing, China on the day the iPhone 16 was released on September 20, 2024.
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Beijing – many appleCNBC's spot checks of stores on Friday, the day the iPhone 16 and Mate XT were launched in China, found that China's wealthier iPhone users were equally interested in Huawei's pricier, three-fold phones.
Of the 10 people CNBC interviewed on Friday, eight expressed interest in both new Huawei and Apple phones. CNBC spoke with five people at each company store on a weekday morning.
Chinese telecom giant Huawei seeks to rebuild its smartphone business following U.S. sanctions in 2019. According to data from Canalys.
Data shows that Apple in the United States fell out of the top five, and domestic manufacturers entered the top five for the first time.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199, and the iPhone 16 starts at $799. Huawei's three-fold Mate XT starts at over $2,800.
On online platforms that sell second-hand goods, the price gap is even more pronounced.
As of 1 pm on Friday, the Huawei Mate XT was selling for 50,000 to 60,000 yuan ($7,100 to $8,520) on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu. The website shows that Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max is priced from 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan.
The website showed that earlier in the day, the Mate XT was listed for resale at 19,000 yuan, while the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max was priced at 9,999 yuan.
No need to queue outside Huawei stores
Beijingers started queuing up to receive their new iPhones at 5:30 a.m., and the doors opened at 8 a.m.
But there were no lines outside Huawei stores in Hefei, a smaller city west of Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese company started delivering the new phone at 10:08 am to those who pre-ordered the device at a 30% discount.
During the hour and 20 minutes CNBC spent at the Huawei store, dozens of people came to the second-floor area reserved for Mate XT buyers.
It's unclear whether all of them purchased the device. Many people buy with the intention of reselling.
Huawei's website showed on Friday that the company had stopped sales and Scheduled to resume at 10:08 a.m. Saturday. The company plans to complete deliveries by September 30, the page says.
The first person CNBC interviewed arrived at a Huawei store at 10 a.m. just to try out the tri-fold phone. The man, surnamed Yang, declined to give his name for fear of speaking to foreign media.
He said that if he buys the tri-fold Mate XT, he plans to try it out for a few days before deciding whether to keep it, give it to a friend or sell it. Yang estimates the device may sell for 2,000 yuan more than the list price.
Yang also said that he uses an iPhone and is interested in trying Huawei's new triple feature because Apple doesn't offer many features that he considers new.
Even Mr. Wang, who was first in line at the Apple store, said he also wanted to buy a Huawei 30% off phone, but had not yet received a text message saying his device was ready for collection.
He said he bought the iPhone 16 because he heard it had longer battery life, but was willing to wait for the iPhone 17's artificial intelligence features.
—CNBC Sonya Heng contributed to this report.