When Apple's iPhone 18 Pro series went up for presale in mainland China at 8 p.m. on September 12, the result was a familiar script: total meltdown, sold out in seconds. Across major Chinese e-commerce platforms, including JD.com, Taobao and Apple's own site, the most popular models were marked out of stock within a minute. Apple's official website and Apple Store app briefly buckled under the traffic, throwing up error messages before recovering roughly six minutes later. On social media, the phrase "couldn't get an iPhone 18" shot to the top of Weibo's trending list, with users complaining they kept refreshing the page only to find stock gone by the time it loaded.
Some tech livestreamers in Shenzhen broadcast themselves on Douyin racing to snag a unit the moment sales opened. In Beijing, meanwhile, Apple's retail stores drew crowds over the weekend eager to try the new phones in person, but walk-in purchases weren't an option. When I asked at an Apple store near where I live, staff told me the only way to buy one was to reserve online.
Scalpers Open For Business With A 20 Percent Markup
New Apple phones are almost always priciest at launch, with prices easing over time. On Chinese resale platforms such as Xianyu, iPhone 17-series units have already seen the steepest markdowns, even as iPhone 16-series phones, further back in the product cycle, remain surprisingly strong sellers.
Any hot new tech product tends to pull forward a wave of what might be called advance consumption: buyers who might otherwise have waited another six months to upgrade instead move up their purchase because of the launch buzz, limited supply and the pull of being among the first to own one. Presale numbers, in other words, mainly prove that day-one demand is intense, not that sales will stay strong for months to come. The more telling question is what happens once the initial batch, absorbed almost entirely by that early rush, gives way to normal supply, and whether market enthusiasm cools off quickly once it does.
Once the first wave of stock disappeared, buyers desperate to get a phone immediately turned to third-party platforms. Data from the resale app Dewu shows the average transaction price for a burgundy iPhone 18 Pro Max with 256GB of storage hit 12,799 yuan, a 16.4% markup, or 1,800 yuan, over the official price. The silver version in the same configuration went even higher, averaging 13,999 yuan, up 3,000 yuan, or 27.3%. Higher-capacity models saw similar premiums, with some 2TB units marked up by more than 3,200 yuan.
Scalper networks had already begun buying up units and offering "purchase assistance" services before the presale even opened, charging anywhere from 299 to 599 yuan per order, with some using automated scripts to place bulk orders. The price gap between mainland and Hong Kong versions widened the arbitrage opportunity further: a 256GB Pro model costs 9,999 yuan on the mainland versus roughly 8,985 yuan, converted, in Hong Kong, a gap of more than 1,000 yuan; for the top-spec 2TB model, that gap approaches 2,800 yuan. Cross-border arbitrage has become close to a sure thing.
Apple Cuts The Standard Model, Funneling Demand Onto One Bridge
A deeper structural factor is at play. Apple discontinued the standard iPhone 18 this year, forcing nearly all upgrade demand onto the Pro line alone. Reservations through JD.com's own channel alone topped 4.1 million, about 2.4 million for the Pro and 1.7 million for the Pro Max, with total reservations across all platforms approaching 4.5 million. Initial stock was deliberately kept thin, and popular colors such as Glacier Blue and Burgundy, along with high-capacity models, vanished from "day-one delivery" almost immediately, with shipping pushed back to September 30 or even into October.
That looks less like insufficient production capacity than the classic rhythm of holding back supply early and ramping it up later. Chinese channel dealers have acknowledged on the social platform Xiaohongshu that supply tends to increase noticeably three to four weeks after launch.
Even With Higher Prices, Demand Keeps Surging
Despite a 1,000-yuan price increase over the previous generation, with the 256GB Pro now starting at 9,999 yuan and the 256GB Pro Max at 10,999 yuan, and the top-spec 2TB model up 3,500 yuan, demand hasn't cooled in the slightest. Data from Taobao's flash-sale platform shows presale sales in the first hour doubled compared with the same period for the iPhone 17 Pro, with the burgundy Pro Max becoming the single best-selling model of the day.
For Apple's fans in China, the new A20 Pro chip, a variable-aperture main camera and fresh color options remain upgrades worth chasing on day one. But when "you can't get one" becomes the norm even as official channels still have stock available in some regions, the buying frenzy starts to look like a carefully coordinated performance: Apple controls the pacing to generate buzz and manufactured scarcity, scalpers intercept supply through technology and channel access, the resale market pushes prices higher, and ordinary consumers end up paying extra simply to be first.
Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, is due for presale on October 16 and official launch on October 23, and the market is already bracing for another round of hype. That Chinese consumers remain willing to spend well over 10,000 yuan on a non-essential purchase suggests a genuinely compelling product can still cut through a sluggish consumer environment. How long this bout of Apple fever lasts remains to be seen.
YP
