September proved to be a month of intense rivalry in the smartphone arena, with six leading brands—Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO, and Honor—unveiling their latest flagship models.

Apple introduced the iPhone18 Pro series, Xiaomi rolled out the Xiaomi 18 Pro series, Huawei presented the Mate90 series, VIVO launched the X500 series, OPPO debuted the Find X10 series, and Honor unveiled the Magic9 series. All these are bona fide flagship smartphones, boasting hefty price tags.

As depicted in the chart above, when focusing on the top-tier Max series, Apple's offering tops the chart at 10,999, trailed by Huawei, Xiaomi, VIVO, OPPO, and Honor.

One might assume that with five domestic smartphone models available—in various sizes such as large, extra-large, and medium—and Apple offering only two costly models, the Pro and Max, which are seen as lacking innovation this time, domestic smartphones would surely outsell Apple. After all, Apple is competing against five rivals.

Yet, surprisingly, Apple emerged victorious against all five. The chart above illustrates the sales figures of the six major flagship smartphones during Week 40, with one column indicating total sales and the other representing new weekly sales.

As evident, Apple's total sales have hit 2.89 million units, whereas the combined sales of the five major domestic brands amount to only 1.128 million units, less than half of Apple's tally.

Certainly, one could contend that Apple's higher sales are due to its earlier product release, and this argument does carry some weight.

So, let's examine the weekly sales. In Week 40 alone, Apple's new sales soared to 1.0837 million units, while the five major domestic brands managed to sell only 692,000 units in the same period. In essence, during that week, the combined sales of the five major domestic smartphones couldn't even surpass those of a single Apple model.

This is particularly noteworthy considering that Apple only released the Pro series this time and did not introduce a standard version. Had they launched a standard version at a lower price point, the outcome might have been different.

Thus, this is indeed a humbling realization. Facing off against five competitors, Apple not only triumphed but did so by a significant margin, with a score of 108:69, securing an easy win.

Why is this the case? I believe we've underestimated Apple and overestimated domestic smartphones.

Apple has consistently maintained an unbeatable position in the high-end market. Regardless of the domestic brand, none can rival Apple. While it's often said that Apple lacks innovation and freshness, do domestic smartphones truly offer anything groundbreaking or innovative? Not really.

Nowadays, domestic smartphones are becoming increasingly expensive, nearly reaching Apple's price bracket. However, Apple's ecosystem, user experience, and product longevity are indeed superior, making its strong sales performance unsurprising.

All we can conclude is that domestic smartphones must persist in their efforts. They can't just claim victory in words and online public sentiment (public opinion) only to falter in actual sales.