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Tim Cook May Not Know Why, But Samsung Is Winning in China
An anonymous reader writes with this interesting snippet about the state of mobile tech in China: "Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook believes that 'over the arc of time' China is a huge opportunity for his pathbreaking company. But time looks to be on the side of rival Samsung Electronics, which has been around far longer and penetrated much deeper into the world's most populous country. Apple this week said its revenue in Greater China, which also includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, slumped 43 per cent to $4.65 billion from the previous quarter. That was also 14 per cent lower from the year-ago quarter. Sales were weighed down by a sharp drop in revenues from Hong Kong. "It's not totally clear why that occurred," Cook said on a conference call with analysts. Neither is it totally clear what Apple's strategy is to deal with Samsung – not to mention a host of smaller, nimbler Chinese challengers."
actually it is, Tim. The Chinese want cheaper phones, and they want phones you can put pirated warez on. Apple doesn't score well in either category.
I have a Chinese (LAVA-branded) Android tablet - it was a freebie from a vendor because I order so much from him (several years we were their largest account). He asked me for feedback on it after I had it for a few weeks. I felt bad but had not much good to say about it. It came with the Netflix preloaded (in their official firmware) and the Netflix app would not load movies. No update was available from Netflix at the time so I contacted lavatech. Their response was that they do not support it, that I should delete the app. WTF? Also, the manual clearly stated that the tablet charges via the mini-USB port. It doesn't. It only charges via the DC adapter port, and it uses a near impossible-to-find-size barrel connector.Lava Tech is uninterested in supporting their core products. Their response if something doesn't work according to their documentation, is to simply not use that feature, or they insist I'm doing it wrong (how can you plug in a mini-USB cable incorrectly?!).
I have a GS1000 dashcam (orange menu, a genuine GS1000 not a clone) - another cheap Chinese product. It has all the features I wanted but I ran into a bug. They quickly turned around and gave me a firmware update that fixed the problem I reported but introduced another problem. I emailed them again and they sent me another update (which I still have yet to test because I have been in the middle of moving to New Hampshire). Excellent customer service for a cheap product.
Support from Chinese companies ranges from completely sucktastic to fantastic. Unfortunately the former is far more common. I think the way Samsung and Apple actually stand behind their products, both will take the Chinese market by storm. I wouldn't buy a smartphone from a Chinese company because there is too much risk that the most basic features won't work (like, not being able to make phone calls) and the company will just say "don't use that feature then."
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Almost everyone I asked said that the iPhone screen was too small.
They also said⦠"Why is the iPhone so expensive when it has such a small screen?"
You can buy an Android phone with a gorgeous 5.7" display for half the cost of the iPhone in China. That was the biggest screen I found and it looked more vibrant than the screen on my iPhone 5.
If Apple wants to keep selling phones in China, they need bigger screens. Therefore, you can expect there will be a big screen iPhone. The Chinese market is too big for them to ignore. There's lots of competition now and Chinese consumers have zero brand loyalty.
This is odd but just today I took my kids to "Chinese Reconciliation Park" - a spot to recognize and apologize for the fact that in the 1800's thousands of Chinese people were driven out of our town in a spat of racial hatred. Most fled on threat of violence but the last 200 were rounded up forcibly, driven to the edge of town to wait a day unsheltered in the pouring, bitterly cold November rain and then loaded onto cattle cars for a trip to Portland, Oregon. At the end of that day there was not one Chinese person left in town. We had had an ethnic purge.
I'm not sure our kids got the whole horror of it, but it hit me pretty hard.