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Knock-Off Apple Watches Hit the Chinese Market Less Than 24 Hours After Launch
schwit1 writes Fake versions of the Apple Watch can be bought for as little as £25 — despite the fact the real thing will set you back more than 10 times that. The flagship new product was only launched in San Francisco yesterday but knock-offs are already available in China. According to CNN Money, they can be found at Huaqiangbei electronics market in the southern city of Shenzhen, and others are being sold nationwide via popular e-commerce websites. Right down to the digital crown, the fakes mimic the design and style of Apple's new offering.
But the important question - Do they work?
...Because a sub-$100 knock-off counts as the only way I'll ever try one.
Yes, since the design of the fakes doesn't match that of the real ones. They are just close copies.
This is one of the "hidden" costs of doing business in China. You can pretty much count on the theft and exploitation of your designs. How dare they exploit us back!
However, given the fact that this is a luxury good and status symbol, I don't think Apple is too worried about this, except if consumers are fooled into buying one. No one wants to show off a knock-off status symbol. It defeats the entire purpose.
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Took them long enough!
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The joke is, most folks who are willing to spend $10,000 for watch won't be able to tell the fake ones from the real ones.
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They definitely do not. Apple is a huge customer. Just, startlingly huge. I once spoke to an Apple guy at a trade show. He wanted to know if our company could produce enough machines to assemble a part that they were musing about. We are the largest manufacturer in the world of the equipment that we make - something like 70% market share. I kind of laughed at first, since I figured there was no way they would tax our capacity. Then we started talking numbers, and it quickly became clear that we would have to resort to extraordinary measures to have any chance at meeting their demand. They are a massive operation, and if you are a vendor of theirs you don't need to share factory floor space with other customers - and certainly not knock offs of their products.
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What will they think of next--fake Rolex watches? Fake Oakley sunglasses? I'm shocked--SHOCKED--by this most recent development.
Wow, 24 hours after launch? That's AMAZING! That is, if you ignore the fact that precise measurements and high-res images of the real thing have been online for months at apple.com... but other than that, yeah, quite a feat.
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They are a massive operation, and if you are a vendor of theirs you don't need to share factory floor space with other customers - and certainly not knock offs of their products.
The problem is that you knock a lot of other customers out of the way to take care of Apple, and they become your only huge customer. Then they pull the rug out from you and your left with no customers.
I can't tell the difference between a bar of gold, and a bar of gold hollowed out and filled with lead*.
Archimedes sorted that problem years ago.
You need to study some basic economic concepts.
The WORTH of something is (correctly and with good reason) completely decoupled from the amount of money it COSTS to make.
The worth of something is how much the consumer is defined as the maximum he/she is willing to pay, according to the benefits he/she subjectively feels he/she the purchase would yield
Those subjective benefits can be in regards to the technical merits, the the aesthetic appeal, an irrational emotional response, or anything else. The PRICE is determined by government regulations interacting with market forces like competition, marketing. At the end of the day, the correct price is the one that makes the seller the most money. Competition would hopefully reduce this to something fair to the consumer.
The only time production cost becomes relevant is if the revenue doesn't lead to enough profits, because the market won't bear high enough prices.
At this point the company stops making the product.
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I know someone who has bought a number of "Rolex" and other expensive watches in China. These aren't the really cheap knock-offs and they're actually of decent quality and keep excellent time. One of my cousins has a real Rolex watch. We put them side by side and it was impossible to tell them apart, right down to the hologram on the back. Of course they were different when you opened them up, but the works in these fake watches were often made in Switzerland or Germany just like the real watches. The writing on the inside of the back of the case also made it obvious that these were fake and this appears to be intentional. From the outside, however, everything seems to be the same, even the smooth movement of the second hand.
Now with the iWatch it should be fairly obvious since they run different operating systems, though I suppose it's possible for a cloned watch to also be able to run iOS just like the real one.
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