I will not be surprised if China overtakes US to become apple's biggest market.
iPhone is so widely known across China that people in the village I was born can speak something about it.
iPhone is showed off by many as a symbol of wealth and social statue, so they all want to possess one and many high schoolers in my school in China use iPhone as their phone.
However, I'd rather like to see Xiaomi, an Android phone made by a Chinese company, to develop well, and eat most of Apple's share.
The Xiaomi is a very low end phone, it is competing more with HTC and even Samsung, not Apple. Try have some pretty colors though, like the Nokia Lumias.
There isn't one China, there are at least 2, maybe 3 chinas. Coastal China is industrialized, urbanized, modern, and wealthy. Inland China is poorer and less developed, and the remote provinces like Yunnan are just a few steps above seriously poor countries like Afghanistan or Haiti.
Have you been to Yunnan? I lived there for a year. The two cities I've seen the most of were about at east-Europe levels of development, surprisingly (to me). The rural areas fare worse, obviously, but I wouldn't expect to meet that much Haiti-level poverty. Wikipedia pegs the "absolutely poor rural population" at 3 million - out of 46 for the whole province. For Haiti, there is 54% of abject poverty.
They still are poorer on average, but the middle class pop. is approaching the pop. of America. And people will own an iPhone before they own a car....so the barista at Starbucks pulling down < 3000RMB/month (< $500) will have one.
It is also experiencing sick growth. So huge that it has to slow down otherwise it's not maintainable.
The middle class alone in China is bigger than the entire eurozone!
And it is not a "lot poorer", china's GDP is only half that of Europe and they have much more room for growth than us.
It's just a matter of time before they pass both Europe and the US.
The "western" world is really in trouble. For example France is expected to lose its status of "World's fifth power" to Bresil before 2017. It is even possible that if Hollande is re-elected in France by the end of its second mandate France would be out of the G8!!!
Many countries are resting on their laurels and "cheating" the economy with endless money printing. Meanwhile other countries are purposely under-valuating their money and closing the gap quickly.
Interesting. It seems to me that in the United States, many people have relatively advanced cell phones and a computer. But in many places in China, this isn't yet the case. So while Apple might sell more products in China in the short term, it's hard to say that this will be the case in the long term. For example, Apple will never sell so many iPods as it did in the past, since so many people these days have an MP3 player or a phone that can do the job--or even an old iPod.
There is that. There is also the fact that there are between three and four times as many people in China as in the US, and in the long term it's a growing market for those who sell middle-class goods like smartphones and laptops.
Someone made this same argument to me 4 years ago when the first apple store opened in Beijing. Deja Vu I guess. Maybe apple is really a fad that will just die out on its own, but they've been saying that for years now.
"Maybe apple is really a fad that will just die out on its own, ..."
Well... Android can give iOS a run for its money.
But there's no way Windows users who switched to an Apple laptop are going to switch back to a PC running an OS made by Microsoft.
Most people love their Apple laptops and they are now so entrenched in schools and amongst devs that there's no way Apple is going to "die" anytime soon. They could stop selling iPod, iPad, iPhones and whatnots that there would still be a market for laptops. It would be back to the "old" Apple selling, well, computers. But dying? Apple existed before I was born and I think they'll still be there long after I'm dead, just like IBM.
For what it's worth I'm no fanboy: I'm using a PC running Linux...
Are we still talking China here? Many Macbooks were running Windows 5 years ago, and now they have mostly transitioned to OS X (its rare to see a Macbook running Windows now). I don't think there are so many Macbooks in schools though, its mostly a thing in the young professional crowd.
For those that want to see how China is changing: Don't visit China. Visit Hong Kong.
No other place exemplifies the rise of the Chinese middle/upper class like it does. The size and popularity of the high end boutique labels e.g. LV, Hermes, Zegna, Gucci far exceeds that of Tokyo, Paris, London, New York. If Apple does cement the iPhone as a status symbol alongside the LV bag it is going to soak up a tremendous amount of profit.
I would actually recommend visiting Shenzhen as well. I have been there a few times over the last five years and it's really interesting to see the rise of luxury items (fancy cars, expensive (real!) handbags and the token iPhone and iPad) in the city centre.
Shenzhen is even in China (though, in a special economic zone).
> If Apple does cement the iPhone as a status symbol alongside the LV bag it is going to soak up a tremendous amount of profit.
This idea fascinates me because tech brands have always been commodities or at best trendy. If Apple can achieve long-term status along the lines of upscale fashion labels that will be absolutely amazing and yet not undeserved.
The interesting thing is how much the retail strategy has played into it.
If you walk down the high street in Ginza, Tokyo you see the Apple Store (which is always packed to capacity) just down from Chanel and Cartier. Which with its strong architectural design really makes it feel like it belongs alongside those other brands.
What's telling as well is that the Sony HQ in Ginza feels so dated.
I think the media is already heavily distorted because everyone is reporting from either Hong Kong, Shanghai or Peking and using these to represent (Greater) China. The one exception is probably Shenzhen due to the occasional Foxconn scandal.
iPhone is showed off by many as a symbol of wealth and social statue, so they all want to possess one and many high schoolers in my school in China use iPhone as their phone.
However, I'd rather like to see Xiaomi, an Android phone made by a Chinese company, to develop well, and eat most of Apple's share.
Apology for my poor English.