The biggest "victim" of Double Eleven: Those who bought the iPhone 17

It's only October 20th, and the first wave of final payment for the Double Eleven shopping festival has already begun.

During the long promotional season, people often encounter moments when they feel like they'll lose out if they don't buy. Regular shoppers know that no matter whether you need a product or not, as long as you see a label that says a direct price cut of 3,500 yuan, you'll unconsciously take a second look.

Colleague Sister Zhang is the same.

She originally had no need to change her phone. But after seeing that the predicted lowest price of the iPhone 17 during the Double Eleven festival might drop to 4,999 yuan, and the price of the MacBook Air has now dropped as low as 4,372 yuan, Sister Zhang changed.

The iPhone 14 Pro she bought for 8,899 yuan suddenly didn't seem so appealing. The MacBook Pro at home that had been in service for 6 years had no major problems, but Sister Zhang didn't want to use it for work anymore.

Sister Zhang isn't the only one who thinks this way.

Searching for the "Apple Trio" on social media, almost all the top posts on the first page are about buying again after the price drops.

Interestingly, almost at the same time, the discussion about which is better, Apple users or Android users, has become a popular topic on the Internet.

While the local online culture highly values Apple products, the real business world shows almost the opposite trend:

The "Apple Trio," which is loved by the middle class, is having huge price cuts.

The "Apple Trio" Can No Longer Stay Expensive

From the moment the iPhone 17 series was unveiled at the press conference, people who planned to change their phones were automatically divided into two groups:

One group rushed to buy the first batch without hesitation, while the other closely watched the Double Eleven festival.

On September 19th, the day the iPhone 17 series was released, online tutorials on "How to Get the iPhone 17 for 4,999 yuan During Double Eleven" were already available.

Since the end of September, posts predicting how much the iPhone 17 will sell for during the Double Eleven festival have successively become popular on various social media platforms.

It's difficult to obtain the real selling prices of the iPhone 17 from different platforms and channels in a short period of time.

In 2025, promotional activities are no longer just about full - price discounts.

Different platforms have different subsidy policies, different regions have different national subsidy amounts, different live - streaming rooms offer different coupon amounts, different user groups determine whether you can enjoy educational discounts, and different purchase channels determine the subsidy amount for trade - ins...

To buy the iPhone 17 at the lowest price across the network, you need to win an information war.

Due to different national subsidy policies in different regions, there are even professional agents for Apple products in areas with national subsidies on social media.

Netizens who can't enjoy the regional national subsidy and don't want to pay a higher price can easily find teaching posts on "Buying an iPhone with an out - of - town address and convincing or paying 200 yuan to the courier to transfer the package."

Before making the payment, no one can be sure at what low price they can finally get the iPhone 17, but one thing is certain:

The closer it gets to Double Eleven, the more specific the prediction of the lowest price of the iPhone 17 becomes.

Of course, there are differences between the rumored low - price prediction tables and the actual selling prices.

Different from the previous rumor that the iPhone 17 could be bought for 4,999 yuan during Double Eleven, on the evening of October 20th, the 31st day after the release of the iPhone 17 series, the first wave of price cuts arrived.

The good news is that the price of the iPhone 17 series has dropped.

The bad news is that the standard version of the iPhone 17 is not included in the price - cut promotion.

On Tmall, if you claim the national subsidy, the estimated price of the standard version of the iPhone 17 will be 5,499 yuan, and the iPhone 17 Pro series can get an immediate discount of 300 yuan.

Although currently, if you order the iPhone 17 from the official Apple flagship store, you still have to wait for 22 days, and the official has also announced that the standard version of the iPhone 17 is not included in the promotion, netizens' attitudes are surprisingly consistent:

Don't buy it yet. Wait a little longer.

It seems that everyone assumes that the iPhone 17 series will have a second wave of price cuts.

Currently, most netizens believe that the ultimate lowest price of the iPhone 17 series will be in Li Jiaqi's live - streaming room. Based on previous live - streaming promotions and platform subsidies, it is predicted that the lowest price of the iPhone 17 this year might be 5,099 yuan. In the face of netizens' urging, Li Jiaqi's live - streaming room has emphasized more than once that they haven't received the final price notice yet.

Li Jiaqi himself revealed that "the iPhone 17 probably won't appear in the live - streaming room in October."

While netizens firmly believe that the price of the iPhone 17 will eventually drop, the price of the 13 - inch MacBook Air M4 has dropped below 5,000 yuan.

After learning that Sister Zhang wants to change her device, more than one colleague in the editorial department sent her this post.

You can buy a 13 - inch 16G + 256G MacBook Air M4 for 4,372 yuan, while its original price is as high as 7,999 yuan.

Just one year after its release, the actual price you pay is almost halved.

Meanwhile, the whole network is looking forward to the price of the MacBook Air M4 hitting a new low during the Double Eleven festival. Just when I thought this expectation was a pipe dream, Sister Zhang sent me updated news:

The price of the Macbook Pro M5 broke through the initial price. After various subsidies, the maximum actual price cut can reach 3,500 yuan.

Looking at the iPad 11, which was released in March this year, the lowest price across the network has now dropped to around 1,700 - 1,900 yuan.

Its original price was as high as 2,999 yuan, and the price has dropped by more than one - third in half a year.

In fact, long before the Double Eleven festival, national subsidies, platform subsidies, and educational discounts have already dragged the ever - popular "Apple Trio" (iPhone, MacBook, and iPad) into a price - cut vortex.

It's just that the arrival of the Double Eleven festival has made the price drops even more exaggerated. After seeing the current prices of Apple products, it's hard for people to imagine:

They used to be a symbol of the middle - class status.

Apple's "Cost - Performance Era" Has Arrived

At around 6 p.m. on September 19th, I saw many scalpers carrying Apple shopping bags at the entrance of the Apple Store in Sanlitun.

Almost everyone who walked out of the store was stopped by them and whispered to. When they saw a customer carrying an iPhone 17 in the shopping bag, they would offer to buy it at a price 350 yuan higher than the purchase price and then resell it at a price 500 or 800 yuan higher than the original price.

If it was an iPhone 17 Pro Max, depending on the color and memory, the purchase price increase could reach around 500 or 800 yuan, and then they would resell it at a price 1,000 or 1,500 yuan higher.

While my friend and I were struggling to decide where to have dinner, I witnessed a scalper buy an iPhone 17 at a price 350 yuan higher than the purchase price and then sell it at a price 800 yuan higher than the original price.

In less than three minutes, they made a net profit of 450 yuan from one purchase and one sale.

But this was almost the only glorious moment for the iPhone 17 as a symbol of middle - class status.

Just a few days after the first - batch sales, the price of the iPhone 17 in duty - free shops had dropped to 4,774 yuan.

No one can tell exactly when Apple started to fall from grace.

People are more familiar with Apple's golden era.

Searching for the iPhone on the Internet, news about people queuing up to buy it at a higher price on the release day will flood in.

According to media reports, "When the iPhone 4 was released, the price of one phone could be increased by 3,000 - 5,000 yuan, and scalpers who resold iPhones could sell hundreds of units a day."

In a specific era, Chinese overseas shoppers would even travel to Hong Kong and Tokyo to queue up to buy iPhones. Even in 2020, when a scalper who resold iPhones was interviewed by the media, he said bluntly that "the premium for each phone was about 2,000 yuan, and the daily turnover was as high as one million yuan."

But in 2024, the income of that scalper with a daily turnover of one million yuan dropped sharply, and the daily turnover was "at most 100,000 yuan." Now, it has almost become a consensus among scalpers not to hoard Apple products.

Compared with the iPhone 4 - 12, the iPhone 17 has quickly changed from a symbol of the middle - class status when it was newly released to a lucky bag in platform promotions.

Most potential users are waiting and hesitating for months about "whether to buy" and "at what price to buy."

Perhaps to boost the popularity of the iPhone 17 series, in the past month