How Apple and iPhone Blew It in China 25 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.
Rumor has it that only 5,000 iPhones have been sold in China since the device's Oct. 30 debut. What happened? Apple's (AAPL) partner in China, China Unicom (CHU), had predicted sales of 5 million in the first few years. Many analysts argue the iPhone's high price (the 16 gigabyte 3GS model goes for about $730 up front) is stopping Chinese consumers from buying. Is that really the explanation?
No. In fact, consumers have paid even more for cracked versions smuggled into the country over the last two years. There are more than 2 million cracked iPhones, and more than that many people have bought them. Younger Chinese typically change their phones every nine to 12 months, and many have profitably sold their iPhones on the secondhand market after using them for a few months. My firm, the China Market Research Group, estimates that as many as 3.5 million Chinese have at one point owned an iPhone. So if price isn't why sales haven't lived up to expectations, what is? Is the iPhone doomed to fail in China, or can Apple turn the situation around?
The iPhone does have a good future in China, but Apple is going to have to change its strategy, and fast. Here are three lessons we can learn from Apple's experience.
1. Take into account local consumer preferences.
The iPhone has sold badly because Apple surprisingly failed to consider consumer preferences and market conditions. The phone is being sold packaged with monthly subscription plans, just as in the U.S., but the vast majority of Chinese prefer to buy pay-as-you-go charge cards. Top-up cards can be bought and recharged cheaply at street vendors everywhere in less than 30 seconds, with no identification required. Subscribing by the month is a pain. You have to go through a mountain of paperwork. Often you need to get sponsored by your company or, if you're from another area, by a friend officially born and registered in the city you're in. This can take hours, if not days. It isn't worth the hassle.
Moreover, our research suggests that although consumers are willing to pay for a handset for prestige, most are extremely price-sensitive when it comes to talk and data plans. The typical consumer spends less than $12 a month, choosing texting over voice calls to save money. Many buy different SIM cards for different cities, to reduce their roaming fees when they travel. Even wealthier consumers do this, because they've gotten used to switching SIM cards when traveling to Hong Kong, where different carriers control the market.
Also, the iPhone's core target market, early adopters, always want to have the latest phone. They don't want a contract tying them to one device for several years. They want to try new ones. For them it makes more sense to use pay-as-you-go cards and switch phones every few months. Some we interviewed used the iPhone, sold it for a profit, and then bought it back again when they realized it was a far superior phone and prices came down.
2. Choose the right partner.
In other parts of the world, Apple has dominance over telecom operators. Carriers see their stock price soar when they sign deals with Apple. In the U.S., consumers have rushed to use AT&T simply because they wanted the iPhone. Apple knows it's at the top of the food chain and can afford to negotiate aggressively with carriers.
China Mobile (CHL) is the nation's dominant player, with a nearly 70% share of China's 702 million mobile phone users. China Unicom, Apple's carrier, holds the remaining share. It tends to have a less wealthy consumer base.
Our research suggests that most consumers believe China Mobile has better signal stability than China Unicom, especially in regional cities beyond Shanghai and Beijing, where more and more business trips and vacations are taking place. People told us they didn't want to change carriers, because they didn't want to worry about weak signals when traveling, even if that meant staying with China Mobile's slower connection. There is also no phone number portability between China Mobile and China Unicom, and consumers don't want to change their numbers just for a new phone.
Why change your phone number and take the risk of bad signal strength when you can buy a cracked iPhone and keep the same number and operator?
3. Launch globally all at once.
Finally, one of Apple's biggest mistakes was that it didn't launch the iPhone around the world all at once. It took far too long to get to China. In today's world, companies can no longer be strongly Americentric, starting product launches in the U.S. alone and only gradually reaching other markets as supply chains catch up. The new growth markets will be in places like China, India and Brazil, where consumers are still spending. Consumers in those places don't want to wait years to get a product they read about online the moment it comes out.
You can't marginalize developing markets anymore. Often they're now the main markets. China has become the world's largest market for both telephones and automobiles.
Despite its rocky start, the iPhone still has a lot of potential in China. That 3.5 million Chinese have paid what it costs to buy cracked ones shows that the market is huge, and customer satisfaction with the iPhone is unbelievably high. Apple just needs to do a better job of taking consumer preferences into account, and to work with its partner, China Unicom, to better deliver what Chinese want.
Related Articles
|
























This article has 25 comments:
In addition, some stupid Chinese laws stopped Apple from including WiFi - which were only recently repealed. This caused manufacturing to go ahead - presumably at the networks', not Apple's, request, without WiFi included.
This, coupled with the equal stupidity of the local network providers who tried to get Apple to cripple the phone's software to only work with their own app stores and bickering over revenue sharing arrangements meant the phone's official roll-out in China was delayed by 2 years.
And this is how "Apple and the iPhone" blew it? Lol! What a "whoring for hits" headline. Its the networks who blew it, and the Chinese government who up until just a few months ago wouldn't allow the phone to include WiFi. The networks commited to purchasing millions of devices, and Apple is no better or worse off irrespective of how many - 5000 or 500,000 - of these crippled devices they can sell on to end users. By now manufacturing lines will have switched over to producing WiFi-enabled versions, and normality will return to the Chinese market once they do and grey market, unofficially-supported units no longer seem so attractive.
But to say Apple blew it? Please, Apple already has almost 4M iPhone users in China from grey imports - all potential upgrade candidates for its next official release there. I think that's a pretty outstanding success story especially as all those units will have been sold at full price, from Apple Stores, and with resultingly higher margins.
Offiicial iPhone sales may be off to a rocky start in China, but blame the Chinese government and the networks' stupidity for that. Apple has played them both like a violin, and reaped the benefit of almost 4M full-cost sales booked in US dollars from their own stores WITH NO SUPPORT OR WARRANTY REQUIREMENTS as a result.
Put that in your spreadsheet and eat it. Blown it? In the UK we have a different expression for when you manage to hit on something which brings in unbelievable amounts of cash: "coining it."
Apple played the Chinese to perfection, probably the only Western company to have ever done so in modern times. While seemingly intrasigent in the face of official negotiations, it ensured it looked the other way and actually encouraged Chinese unlocking (the phone fully support Chinese character sets and has done for years) so that grey market importers could saturate the Chinese market with its devices sold at full price, giving the carriers no choice but to eventually capitulate.
Now Apple has grown a user base so huge that the upgrade sales into the official sales channels for the next-gen devices is all but guaranteed to be one of the biggest roll-outs in the company's history.
The guys with egg-fried rice on their faces are the Chinese networks. Apple is laughing all the way to is non-GAAP accounting revenue bank account.
Certainly Chinese government and the China Mobile did not make it easy for Apple to have the right strategy in China. Apple, though, failed miserably for years in having a right strategy in China.
Shaun's article is very insightful. I thought Wifi was the big thing besides price, but Shaun's Part I changed my opinion.
A sale is a sale, official or unofficial. Retail channel or grey market. It doesn't matter. The iPhones sold into the Chinese (and other) markets via unlockers represent the highest-margin units Apple sells. They are generally sourced from Apple's own US stores rather than retail/carrier partners, cutting out the middleman, and have no warranty or support costs.
The Chinese networks only have themselves to blame for the dysfunctional nature of the official launch and subsequent slow sales. The fact that they went ahead and ordered the phone without WiFi (with what must have been an absolute commitment to a significant quanitity for Apple to agree) when they must have known the law was going to change to allow WiFi shortly thereafter shows the networks blinked first and realised they had to get moving, or lose out.
An iPhone bought in Hong Kong, New York, or Shanghai is still an iPhone sold. Frankly m'dear, I don't give a damn so long as Apple is being paid in full for each and every phone. Local chinese networks may have to ultimately discount these crippled phones by a massive margin to get rid of them as the WiFi-enabled version is rolled-out, but Apple will still receive the full value of the original agreed price. Its the networks which will take the hit, not Apple. In the meantime, savvy Chinese buyers will continue to buy grey market imports as they see fit, and the iPhone sales phenomenon will continue to grow exponentially as it has since its launch.
What's happened here is that the Chinese networks, so arrogant and confident at the outset of their negotiations with Apple, have been forced to eat humble pie. They blinked first. Apple simply outflanked them from the outset by ensuring the phone was both accessible and usable by Chinese consumers almost from the outset, as 3-4M unlocked iPhones testifies to.
I fail to see why anyone refuses to acknowledge the brilliance of Apple's China strategy. It has already been a wild success. The first stage was the invasion of 3-4 million unlocked phones into the hands of Chinese consumers. The second stage will be those users upgrading to the next version of the iPhone (whether the 3GS with WiFi enabled, or a version to be released next year). Sudddenly you'll see millions of official iPhones sold in China in 2010, and I doubt you'll be reading much about "miserably failing launches" then.
Just remember: the real Chinese launch already happened, 2 years ago. The "official" launch last month was just for show and lays the foundations for the next tsunami of sales in 2010.
The reason the iPhone is not doing well in China and will NOT do well elsewhere overseas is that these markets had similar products years ago...despite the belief that the US is still the leader in tech, the truth is that America is no longer the leader in tech...American tech is now years behind their competitors.
As for investing overseas, I'm all for it. Doubled my money on STP in the past 12 months. I like ABB a lot.
On Nov 08 11:35 AM Tony Daltorio wrote:
> When are American investors going to ever look beyond US borders?
>
>
> The reason the iPhone is not doing well in China and will NOT do
> well elsewhere overseas is that these markets had similar products
> years ago...despite the belief that the US is still the leader in
> tech, the truth is that America is no longer the leader in tech...American
> tech is now years behind their competitors.
As for your remark that other countries are way more advanced than American tech, only Japan and North Korea have markets which enjoy "bleeding edge" technology built into their mobile phones, and that's chiefly because they operate in highly unusual markets, using unique and proprietory networks.
Sorry fellow-contributor, but you really need to get out more.
On Nov 08 11:35 AM Tony Daltorio wrote:
> When are American investors going to ever look beyond US borders?
>
>
> The reason the iPhone is not doing well in China and will NOT do
> well elsewhere overseas is that these markets had similar products
> years ago...despite the belief that the US is still the leader in
> tech, the truth is that America is no longer the leader in tech...American
> tech is now years behind their competitors.
On Nov 08 11:35 AM Tony Daltorio wrote:
> When are American investors going to ever look beyond US borders?
>
>
> The reason the iPhone is not doing well in China and will NOT do
> well elsewhere overseas is that these markets had similar products
> years ago...despite the belief that the US is still the leader in
> tech, the truth is that America is no longer the leader in tech...American
> tech is now years behind their competitors.
On Nov 08 11:35 AM Tony Daltorio wrote:
> When are American investors going to ever look beyond US borders?
>
>
> The reason the iPhone is not doing well in China and will NOT do
> well elsewhere overseas is that these markets had similar products
> years ago...despite the belief that the US is still the leader in
> tech, the truth is that America is no longer the leader in tech...American
> tech is now years behind their competitors.
The China introduction certainly hasn't helped the price of their stock, its been a non-event so far.
I worry that Apple is neglecting their computer line while they push their phone, and as we have all seem before the competition in the cell phone market can be brutal. People can be in love with a phone one minute and moving on to the next hot phone the next, especially when the coverage is so poor. I have more than a few friends that have iPhones and they have tried to show me some cool new app. they have downloaded, only to sit there while their phone is trying to get service.
Again, I think Apple needs to spend some more time and effort on their other product lines, or their stock is going to suffer.
On Nov 08 07:00 AM Julian Ivan-Alexander wrote:
> So let me see... 3.5M chinese have bought an iPhone since it was
> launched (irrespective of whether those were grey market imports
> or not) and those would have been bought at full price from US Apple
> stores unsubsidised by a network, and then unlocked.
> In addition, some stupid Chinese laws stopped Apple from including
> WiFi - which were only recently repealed. This caused manufacturing
> to go ahead - presumably at the networks', not Apple's, request,
> without WiFi included.
> This, coupled with the equal stupidity of the local network providers
> who tried to get Apple to cripple the phone's software to only work
> with their own app stores and bickering over revenue sharing arrangements
> meant the phone's official roll-out in China was delayed by 2 years.
>
> And this is how "Apple and the iPhone" blew it? Lol! What a "whoring
> for hits" headline. Its the networks who blew it, and the Chinese
> government who up until just a few months ago wouldn't allow the
> phone to include WiFi. The networks commited to purchasing millions
> of devices, and Apple is no better or worse off irrespective of how
> many - 5000 or 500,000 - of these crippled devices they can sell
> on to end users. By now manufacturing lines will have switched over
> to producing WiFi-enabled versions, and normality will return to
> the Chinese market once they do and grey market, unofficially-supported
> units no longer seem so attractive.
> But to say Apple blew it? Please, Apple already has almost 4M iPhone
> users in China from grey imports - all potential upgrade candidates
> for its next official release there. I think that's a pretty outstanding
> success story especially as all those units will have been sold at
> full price, from Apple Stores, and with resultingly higher margins.
>
> Offiicial iPhone sales may be off to a rocky start in China, but
> blame the Chinese government and the networks' stupidity for that.
> Apple has played them both like a violin, and reaped the benefit
> of almost 4M full-cost sales booked in US dollars from their own
> stores WITH NO SUPPORT OR WARRANTY REQUIREMENTS as a result.
> Put that in your spreadsheet and eat it. Blown it? In the UK we have
> a different expression for when you manage to hit on something which
> brings in unbelievable amounts of cash: "coining it."
> Apple played the Chinese to perfection, probably the only Western
> company to have ever done so in modern times. While seemingly intrasigent
> in the face of official negotiations, it ensured it looked the other
> way and actually encouraged Chinese unlocking (the phone fully support
> Chinese character sets and has done for years) so that grey market
> importers could saturate the Chinese market with its devices sold
> at full price, giving the carriers no choice but to eventually capitulate.
>
> Now Apple has grown a user base so huge that the upgrade sales into
> the official sales channels for the next-gen devices is all but guaranteed
> to be one of the biggest roll-outs in the company's history.
> The guys with egg-fried rice on their faces are the Chinese networks.
> Apple is laughing all the way to is non-GAAP accounting revenue bank
> account.
China was not included in the second wave of countries and Apple decided to included later and alone, Uganda, MOzambique etc had the IPhone before China...that killed a % of the market, and there are the local factors.....bad for Apple China Team.
On Nov 08 05:40 PM Advill wrote:
> Americentric is not working, your analysis is wrong.
I weep - with laughter - as I recall how everything Apple has done since 2001 (from the iPod, to the iBook, to OS X, and especially the retail stores) has been doubted and called out by bloggers and experts as "doomed to failure/irrelevance", only to see the company's stock price rise several thousand percent and total global domination of the consumer electronics market in areas it chooses to compete in.
Armchair anaylsts indeed - please, someone pass me an Advil (not an "Advill" please note); I've got a headache.
Most Chinese are dirt poor. If you make 50 cents a day you won't be in the market for anything Apple or any other smart-phone maker produces. What is the real market potential?
He is specifying than Chinese way of doing things is in anonymous credit buying (by the way, it´s also mainly used in India, Mexico, and most of Africa.
There are uses for cell phones that are unthinkable in first world economies and are inventions that work for them.
The millions of Iphone sold in china use street credit...as simple as that.
Regards.
On Nov 08 06:33 PM GSlusher wrote:
> How? You don't provide any reasons, examples, data, or anything other
> than a bald assertion.
>
> On Nov 08 05:40 PM Advill wrote:
On Nov 08 02:44 PM Czarembo wrote:
> Some interesting assertions. However, it was the lack of wi-fi period.
Armchair anaylsts indeed - please, someone pass me an Advil (not an "Advill" please note); I've got a headache."
Agree 100% with this statement! Julian, your comments are dead on.
"Many buy different SIM cards for different cities, to reduce their roaming fees when they travel. Even wealthier consumers do this, because they've gotten used to switching SIM cards when traveling to Hong Kong, where different carriers control the market."
Amazing! they have number portability across different SIM cards!
As for your third point, what do you suggest, that Apple go back in time and launch the phone simultaneously? I recall there was an issue with more than one release of long lines and product shortages on launch. Further are you suggesting Apple risk release their first product in a new category globally? What if something went wrong?
Perhaps you have better information and explain here what strategy is Apple applying there and how they will get a foothold in China, I understand that "force" of Apple is how they apply a unique model for their products, but in this case it seems is not working...perhaps i´m wrong and you can explain to us how game is going on there.
By Aspirins....cheaper and better.
Regards.
On Nov 08 06:37 PM Julian Ivan-Alexander wrote:
> Good lord... all that really matters is that Apple's selling millions
> of iPhones to the Chinese. Whether its on the black, grey, white
> or yellow market, quite frankly, doesn't matter a tinker's cuss:
> official channels be damned. 3-4M iPhones in China is 3-4M iPhones
> in China. If you can't deal with that fact, then you can't accept
> the reality of how strong demand for the product obviously is in
> that country, and how simply enormous future sales will be. If you
> can't do the math, you shouldn't be trading on the stock market.
>
> I weep - with laughter - as I recall how everything Apple has done
> since 2001 (from the iPod, to the iBook, to OS X, and especially
> the retail stores) has been doubted and called out by bloggers and
> experts as "doomed to failure/irrelevance", only to see the company's
> stock price rise several thousand percent and total global domination
> of the consumer electronics market in areas it chooses to compete
> in.
> Armchair anaylsts indeed - please, someone pass me an Advil (not
> an "Advill" please note); I've got a headache.
In order for the 'official' roll-out to be successful, they'll have to differentiate between it and the cracked phone. Seems according to this article, that will be one tall order. It didn't even touch upon the edge the cracked phones have as far as wi-fi.
Finally, for Apple, what about the Apps store? How profitable has it been for them to run its Apps store servicing 3.5 mil cracked phones? People smart enough to get such devices are probably smart enough to circumvent 'proper' channels in getting accompanying software. I don't see a savvy Beijing social-elite able to pony up close to $1000 US for a cell phone being any different.
In this sense, the iPhone has already debuted in China, and as the author pointed out, it has already been a huge success popularity-wise. Now comes the also-ran 'official' Unicom iPhone. It seems from the article that Apple, due to the delayed roll-out, missed its chance to 'properly' profit from the iPhone's potential in China. Of course, that's assuming it ever had the chance to do so.