iPhone Duo Mania in China! Tens of Thousands Camp Out for 3 Days and Nights to Buy First

Those promotional images of the iPhone Duo really won me over. It's pretty expensive, but I just want to buy it. I've fallen for it. My heart is racing. My hands are shaking. I finally managed to get an Apple Duo. Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, went on sale in China on October 23rd. Strong demand sparked a rush to line up outside stores. Many customers arrived two days early just to get the new phone as soon as possible. In Macau, Apple's directly operated stores still allow customers to line up in person for a purchase number. More than a thousand people crowded outside the stores, waiting for their chance. Some spent three full days and nights in line outdoors. Daytime temperatures above 86 degrees Fahrenheit left them baking in the sun and drenched in sweat, without time to find somewhere to shower. One scalper, who has long worked in Hong Kong and Macau, said this was hard-earned money. For previous models, arriving a day early was usually enough. This time, anyone who did not arrive three days early had no chance because purchase numbers could be handed out at any moment. The scalper said, the Apple store will probably smell horrible on the 23rd. People will have spent three days baking in the sun without a shower. It's tough for us. At the Londoner Macau, the line is outdoors and daytime temperatures have been around 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Things are a little better at the Galaxy Macau store. In the early morning, people can sit on the ground or lie down and sleep until around 7 a.m. Here, we have to stand in line the whole time. Another scalper said that in temperatures above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, people should drink as little water as possible. Otherwise, repeated bathroom trips could cost them their place in line. Only mainland Chinese scalpers could stand this kind of physically punishing wait. Even so, three days in line, three days without a shower, and three days of struggling to eat, drink, use the bathroom, and sleep brings in just about 25 yuan, about $375 in profit. That works out to be $120 a day, a very high income for many people in mainland China. Wherever there's profit, there are scalpers lining up. Scalpers operate outside legitimate sales channels. They hire large numbers of people to queue or use technology to snap up products, stockpile them, and resell them at higher prices to customers who actually want them. As an in-person launch retailer, Costco in Longhua, Shenzhen, did not require online reservations. Lining Up offered a chance to buy a phone, making it one of the few opportunities to get an iPhone Duo at its original price this year. Some people arrived at 8 p.m. on October 21 to claim a spot, bringing camping chairs, drinking water, and snacks for an overnight wait. One user arrived at Costco's Shenzhen Longhua store at 6 p.m. on the 22nd and found more than 100 people already waiting in line. They started lining up yesterday. Apparently, they have to stay here for three straight days. That takes real determination. I quietly asked around, and it seems they'll have 200 phones available. More than 100 people are already in line. Online pre-orders for the foldable iPhone Duo opened on October 16. Stock was snapped up shortly after sales began, pushing delivery dates for many orders back to late January of the following year. To curb the buying frenzy, Apple limited each customer to two new phones, making places in line even harder to secure. The situation at sales locations in other Chinese cities was much the same. In Shanghai and Suzhou, people were bringing small stools to line up at entrances by noon the day before the launch. Costco in Suzhou also participated in the launch, with in-store sales beginning on October 23. Sales were first-come, first-served. Customers had to line up for a number and activate the phone on the spot. According to one user, about 100 people were already in line by about 2 p.m., probably about as many as the number of phones available. They said even the phones have to be activated, scalpers will still buy them. One has already paid me a deposit. I'm treating it like an overnight shift. Earning 1,000 yuan, $150 in one night, is not bad. Hi, everyone. Can you see what we are doing? We look like refugees. We are lining up for the iPhone Duo. If you watch this morning's live stream, you probably know how many people are here at our Suzhou Costco. We're not really here mainly to grab a phone. We're just tagging along to see what it is like. Our online retail business has been slow around the Double Eleven Shopping Festival, so we came to experience this life of lining up, this refugee life. On the day the iPhone Duo went on sale, more than 100 people lined up early in the morning to collect their phones at Apple's Hubin store in Hangzhou. People also queued outside the Westlake store, but scalpers complained that they had not made a single sale in the first half hour after launch. A video posted by one user showed the iPhone Duo display area at Apple's Westlake store in Hangzhou packed solid. You can't even get into the foldable phone display area. Crowds of customers are taking turns trying it out. The demo phones have already run out of battery. On October 23rd, the first iPhone Duo customers gathered outside Apple's Jing'an store in Shanghai. They included buyers collecting pre-ordered devices, walk-in customers hoping to secure available stock, and scalpers looking to resell phones at a markup. At 8 a.m., the doors opened. Inside the store, staff in blue uniforms stood in two rows and burst into applause as the door swung open. The first customers entered with everyone watching. The moment felt even more ceremonial than last month's launch of the iPhone 18 Pro. Although he already owned a Xiaomi foldable phone, 26-year-old healthcare worker Liu Wei began lining up outside Apple Shanghai's Jing'an store at 6 a.m. on the 23rd. He said, I've used Apple products for many years, and I trust the brand, so I bought one on the first day to try it out. In Beijing before dawn on October 23rd, temperatures dropped to just 43 degrees Fahrenheit, but Apple fans were already lining up outside the store. They huddled along the roadside with hand warmers, scrolling on their phones and waiting to rush inside for the new model. A reporter who arrived at the Wangfujing store after 7 a.m. on launch day counted at least 20 scalpers clustered in a corner. They were comparing figures, asking how many phones each had acquired, and calculating how much they might make that day. One user shared his transaction record. On the second day of pre-orders, he decided to pay a premium of 525 U.S. dollars to reserve a 512-gigabyte iPhone Duo. He completed the transaction at a physical store in Beijing on the morning of the 23rd. For users willing to pay extra, part of the purchase is the excitement of being among the first to own Apple's new phone. With the largest screen of any iPhone to date, the iPhone Duo does offer several new experiences. It uses nanotexture glass, whose textured surface reduces reflections and makes the crease less visible. When fully unfolded, apps can split the screen into left and right panels. It also offers another way to use the phone on a table, standing half folded, with the show playing on the upper half while tasks run on the lower half. At an Apple retail store, one customer said, I think they've done a pretty good job here. Apple has kept the crease under control. At least when I looked at it, I could barely tell it was there. Apple remains confident that customers will pay a premium of thousands of yuan. Apple's foldable is definitely social currency, at least today, at this stage. But if you spend 16,000 yuan, about US$2,399, on a Chinese-made foldable, it does not give you that social currency. Even a Chinese-made trifold phone cannot do that. In China, weak consumer spending and rising memory costs have driven smartphone shipments down for six consecutive quarters. Still, Apple's market share has begun recovering as some consumers upgrade to premium devices. Preliminary data from CounterPoint Research show phone sale shares for the week of October 12th through 18th. There are a few surprises, both in market share and in the models sold. Apple remained far ahead that week with a 29% share, while Huawei reached 18%. Together, Apple and Huawei accounted for 47%, leaving relatively little room for other brands, including Xiaomi and Oppo. Among individual models, Apple's four iPhones took the four top spots without dispute. Apple's iPhone 16 Pro series has already sold more than 3 million units in just three weeks. What does that mean? This year, flagship phones from all the other brands cannot reach that number over their entire product life cycles. Apple did it in just three weeks. Imagine what happens when the base iPhone 18 comes out next year. If the price drops into the 5,000 yuan, about US$750 plus range, and it goes head-to-head with our Android phones, what are those Android manufacturers supposed to do? Pre-order excitement does not necessarily reflect actual market demand. The iPhone Duo's resale prices have already begun falling, with a peak markup of 10,000 yuan, about 1,500 US dollars, to only about 3,000 yuan, or 450 US dollars. Of course, prices vary by region and sales channel, and some buyers may also be deliberately driving prices down. Wow, is that 300,000 yuan worth? This guy bought one at a 2,200 yuan, about $330 premium. Someone bought one at a 2,200 yuan premium? Wasn't everyone saying the markup was 7,000 yuan, about US $1,049? Look, a whole bunch of people are selling, right? We are not taking any more 256GB models for now. The 512GB and 256GB models have the same markup? This one is 1,500 yuan extra. Are you taking only white ones now? Yes, only white. Let's ask two more places and see how much the price of the same phone can vary. This is the black 512GB model. No, I want white. How much is the white one? The markup is 800 yuan to 1,000 yuan. Wasn't it 1,500 yuan just now? It hasn't even been 5 minutes. I asked 5 or 6 places today. The highest markup was 2,200 yuan, and the lowest was 500 yuan. Some would not even take them anymore. The same phone can differ by 500 yuan just a few dozen yards away. My goodness, even five minutes makes a completely different price. About US$150, now 900 to 1,000 in cash. I'm planning to buy 100 or 200 phones. Where did you come from? I'm from Pingdingshan, Henan. Are you a buyer here to purchase iPhone duos? I am here to buy stock. A scalper. You could say that. I am in the phone business. Have you bought any yet? I bought seven this morning. I may lose money on some because prices keep falling. So you bought them from other people? They all came from customers. Then you still need to buy a lot more. You're a long way off. I still need to buy more. Since prices keep falling, I may need to make up the price difference. These are today's current prices. The markup on a 512GB model is only 1,000 yuan now. I paid a 1,500 yuan markup this morning, so I have already lost 500 yuan on each phone. If someone wants to buy one now, how much extra would they have to pay a scalper? From a scalper, the markup is probably around 1,300 yuan for the 256GB model now. For the 512GB model, it may be around 2,000 yuan. Have you been doing this business all along? I sell phones. I have customers who want them. So I have to buy below these quoted prices to make a profit. The reason iPhone Duo resale prices are falling is not hard to understand. Supply and demand are the biggest factors. This time, JD.com, mobile carriers, and other platforms have upended the scalper's business. Since online pre-orders opened on the evening of October 16th, JD.com has periodically released more stock. Paying an extra $300 for its shipping benefits Bundle also makes it easier to secure a phone. Activation is required upon receipt, but that makes no difference to buyers using the phones themselves. Several authorized Apple retailers have also offered bundles costing about $540 extra, including two years of AppleCare+. Meanwhile, China Mobile and China Unicom have introduced phone contract plans. Supplies in Beijing and some other areas are relatively plentiful, and the conditions are not especially strict. Signing up for a contract plan is enough, making it a much better deal than buying from scalpers. Another reason prices are falling is that practically everyone is becoming a scalper. Ordinary individual buyers who do not need the phone themselves have joined in as small-time resellers. One stall owner in Huaqiangbei said, Hardly anyone is coming to buy from me. Everyone wants to sell to me. Something is very wrong here. The Huaqiangbei phone shop owner estimated that scalpers accounted for 80% of the first batch, with only 20% going to buyers who would use the phone themselves. Still, some users who have just received their iPhone Duo from scalpers are offering too little and have decided to wait. One user wrote, It's the scalper's usual trick. They push prices down at the start of the first day, stock up, then raise prices again a few days later. Whatever the number of actual end users, Apple sales figures show that the iPhone Duo is selling extremely well. The iPhone Duo's strong sales offer further evidence of Apple's brand power. In its latest research report, Morgan Stanley said Apple's first foldable phone showed strong early demand on its first pre-order day. Average global delivery times reached about 14 weeks, the longest the firm has recorded in its decade of tracking Apple models. The iPhone lineup is Apple's most important revenue source, accounting for about half of its income. The iPhone Duo represents the biggest design change in the lineup's nearly 20-year history. Although Apple is not the first company to launch a foldable phone, this more refined product, built specifically for Apple fans, could give it an edge in the market. Market research firm IDC forecasts that Apple will ship about 7 million iPhone Duos this year, roughly 3% of its total 2026 shipments. It predicts sales will grow another 70% next year, giving Apple about 40% of the global foldable phone market and putting it ahead of Samsung and Huawei as the category leader. Some firms, including CounterPoint and TrendForce, have more conservative first-year shipment forecasts of 5 to 6 million units. The main constraints are the complex manufacturing processes for hinges and flexible displays, and the pace at which production capacity can ramp up. The iPhone Duo is Apple's first foldable iPhone. It folds inward like a book, with a 7.6-inch inner screen when open and 5.4-inch outer screen when closed. In mainland China, the 256GB model starts at 15,999 yuan, about $2,400. Early reviews have generally praised its design, especially the sturdy, nearly invisible hinge, which is seen as a major breakthrough in phone design. As of October 24th, markups on the first available iPhone duos varied by model. One shopping app showed the 256GB version, officially priced at $2,399, most recently selling for $2,698, a $300 premium. The 512GB model, officially priced at $2,698, most recently sold for $3,073, a $375 premium. The Starlight White 1TB version, officially priced at US$3,223, had the latest average transaction price of US$3,724, about a $500 premium. Initial sales show that Apple's brand appeal and the novelty of its first foldable iPhone have already attracted considerable market attention. On the buying frenzy caused by tight initial supplies, one distributor told mainland Chinese media, I think very few people are buying the iPhone Duo to use right now. Most are speculating on the stock, and there doesn't seem to be that much room for a markup anymore. After today, October 23rd, it'll probably be very small. Many customers with reservations made a special trip to try the interaction between Apple's foldable hardware and software. They're also watching where prices go before deciding whether to buy.