Apple, China simply incompatible?
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jul 23, 2008 at 5:48pm
Most Apple products are simply far too expensive for China, reporter Mike Elgan writes for the Datamation web site. A 2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook available at the new Apple store, for example, costs about the same as the average city-based Chinese worker earns in a year: $2,000.
Of course, Apple succeeds because customers love the products and the brand. But in China, brands mean little to most potential customers, and hardware even less. Chinese consumers prize value above all, Elgan writes.
“The rest of the world’s love of the Apple brand has enabled Apple to get favorable terms with carriers around the world,” he says. “But this hasn’t helped much in China. Apple initially demanded a big two-digit percentage of carriers’ wireless revenue as a condition for granting its coveted exclusivity deal, according to reports (one company says Apple demanded 30 percent). The Chinese carriers were apparently unimpressed by the value of Apple’s brand compared with the value to Apple of access to Chinese consumers. They appear to have forced Apple to drop its demand for any share of wireless revenues.”)
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
