Apple’s China Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#101

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

nullnilvoid wrote: post #97

gnrlist wrote: post #56

Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS. If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere. Apple has a strong brand because of it's history as a premium device company internationally, that's all. Their brand was their first mover advantage in China but now Chinese companies are closing that brand gap and since WeChat rules the software side Apple is going to have a hard…

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#102

Post by blacksmith_tb » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

nullnilvoid wrote: post #97

gnrlist wrote: post #56

Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS. If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere. Apple has a strong brand because of it's history as a premium device company internationally, that's all. Their brand was their first mover advantage in China but now Chinese companies are closing that brand gap and since WeChat rules the software side Apple is going to have a hard…

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

Without wading into a my-anecdotes-against yours battle, I think most would agree that at this point Chinese smartphone shoppers have options from Xiaomi and Huawei among others[1] that are of equal quality to Apple hardware (and may be better designed for their market).

1: http://time.com/4547129/china-smartphone-market-oppo-vivo-xi...

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#103

Post by valuearb » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

yabatopia wrote: post #16

I don't know if most people really consider the OS to be that important anymore, as the author strongly believes. The Windows Surface Laptop is no threat to Apple because it doesn't run macOS. Samsung's smartphones are no threat to Apple because the phones don't run iOS. Then he continues with the WeChat factor to explain the shrinking market share of Apple in China. If you consider China the trendsetter in tech, tha…

"The Windows Surface Laptop is no threat to Apple because it doesn't run macOS. "

Author didn't say that, he said MacOS was a unique product which made it a monopoly, it doesn't guarantee success or losing sales to semi-comparable substitutes. But let's look at it's current state.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/11/q1-2017-worldwide-mac-s...

6.8% doesn't sound like a lot, but remember the Mac got as low as 2% twenty years ago. And Macs sell for an average of $1,200 while Windows PC average sales price is around $500. So Apple has about 16% of PC revenues (and the majority of PC profits).

Apple is selling over $25B a year of Macs and growing revenues in an industry declining at 10% a year, Surface sales peaked at $3.5B and are now falling. Evidence is that Surface sales aren't a big threat to Apple because even an identical form factor isn't going to sway customers who want MacOS.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#104

Post by valuearb » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #95

skdotdan wrote: post #53

The problem with many tech analysts is that they are Apple fanboys without even knowing that they are. Stating that Microsoft Surface and Samsung S8 are not competitors of Apple just because their products don't run Mac OS/iOS is pure fanaticism at the very least. Nevertheless, I find that the main point of the article is right. But Apple's China problem is also a very important problem for Google (actually, it's wor…

>> The problem with many tech analysts is that they are Apple fanboys without even knowing that they are. That's true for most of the discussion on the internet: so much talk about how Apple's chips/apps/ui/build-quality/founders/etc are so much better. But almost no talk at all about how modern brands get built, and what such brands give to users: for example, the ability to tell stories(implicitly or explicitly) to…

If you think brand is the reason Apple succeeds, you simply are way over-discounting or don't understand unique platform features/benefits.

Brands become powerful only when they are true. All the marketing in the world can't successfully position your products as valuable and unique, if they aren't. You can't fool people for long. The gods of the advertising industry want you to believe they can sell ice to eskimos, but they are merely selling their book.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#105

Post by vanilla_nut » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #91

vanilla_nut wrote: post #84

>Unsurprisingly, in stark contrast to the rest of the world, according to a report earlier this year only 50% of iPhone users who bought another phone in 2016 stayed with Apple: At first, I was confused by this graphic. Then I realized that the author is dramatically misinterpreting it: the graphic actually means that 66.85% of phones purchased in 2015 were made by Apple and 50% of phones purchased in 2016 were made…

Somehow you didn't notice the graph added up to 250%, and you snark that the author needs to brush up on statistics? Please explain how 50 of 250 is actually 50% of everything. Especially when the author writes iPhone sales are only 9.6% of the chinese market.

Good point. I guess I should have gotten a little more sleep last night...

So I guess these ARE customer retention rates? Following his link brings me here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5ODEyOTAyMA==&mid=266190... (god, what a ridiculously lengthy URL). Looks like Apple only captured 33 and 25% of the market each year, respectively- not 66 and 50%, as I thought before. In which case I think the author should at least mention the fact that Apple's picking up a lot of their competitor's customers YoY as well- that's hardly a bad thing. Maybe the Chinese market simply has less brand loyalty.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#106

Post by valuearb » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #96

valuearb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applications matter.

You're not wrong, but all the applications I care about run on Linux: - emacs - vi - zsh - st - SBCL - tmux - Inkscape - sxiv - Firefox - Gnucash - GraphicsMagick - Nethack - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - Minecraft Of those, only Minecraft isn't developed on Linux first (and maybe Firefox, depending on how you define that condition). I can be productive. I can read email (in emacs, of course!). I can play games. I can r…

That's what makes you a representative of a tiny minority.

I've spent part of a career writing software for people whose daily workflows required Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXPress, and a dozen other supporting applications, and they always ran much better on MacOS and were far easier to use and train people to use.

But even those people are still a tiny minority, where most of the world revolves around MSFT Office and hundreds of applications on Windows.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#107

Post by otos » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

nullnilvoid wrote: post #97

gnrlist wrote: post #56

Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS. If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere. Apple has a strong brand because of it's history as a premium device company internationally, that's all. Their brand was their first mover advantage in China but now Chinese companies are closing that brand gap and since WeChat rules the software side Apple is going to have a hard…

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

iMessage is the only distinguishing benefit iPhone has. If WeChat or other apps are more popular in a market, I see Apple having a serious challenge.

The UI on the iPhone is incredibly challenging for me, especially web browsing.

I have a long list of criticisms on Android but both platforms seem incredibly flawed. The companies appear busy concoting marketing features and not with improving the functionality and experience.

I'm staying with the iPhone purely because of iMessage and Snapchat. I also don't want to waste time on the web, so the clunkiness is a benefit.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#108

Post by bobsam » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #102

nullnilvoid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

Without wading into a my-anecdotes-against yours battle, I think most would agree that at this point Chinese smartphone shoppers have options from Xiaomi and Huawei among others[1] that are of equal quality to Apple hardware (and may be better designed for their market). 1: http://time.com/4547129/china-smartphone-market-oppo-vivo-xi...

Huawei version of Android even looks like iOS.

I wish they had copied the more elegant windowsphone UI instead.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#109

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #102

nullnilvoid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

Without wading into a my-anecdotes-against yours battle, I think most would agree that at this point Chinese smartphone shoppers have options from Xiaomi and Huawei among others[1] that are of equal quality to Apple hardware (and may be better designed for their market). 1: http://time.com/4547129/china-smartphone-market-oppo-vivo-xi...

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#110

Post by valuearb » Fri, May 05, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

anjc wrote: post #99

valuearb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your logic, if Windows was a good enough OS to be a differentiator, everyone would just build their own PCs to save a hundred bucks. Because everyone has the free time, inclination, and skills to build one, and everyone enjoys tinkering with their PCs when they don't run right, instead of actually getting work done.

No it'd be more like "if Windows was a good enough OS, people would go to efforts to install it on computers that aren't made for it" (Bootcamp?). But either way, neither OSX or Windows are "differentiators". Attributes might differentiate the products in a theoretical sense, for example branding, pricing, licensing, support, ease of use, but there's effectively only 3 widely used operating systems so it's senseless…

If you don't understand how massively differentiated operating systems are in terms of features, you simply don't understand the concept of differentiation.

For example, the number of applications an OS can run is an incredibly important and valuable feature. How well it runs those applications is also an important and valuable feature. There is a reason why Excel users usually pick Windows, and Photoshop users often pick MacOS.

So Redhat. How well does it run Excel and Photoshop?