31–40 of 88 posts
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"it's Apple that needs China's market". I always hear this, but given the experience of most american companies in china, it seems little stretched.
Who else do they make a gold and red $20k+ watch for? More seriously, China is their 2nd biggest market and Tim Cook expects it to be their 1st. http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/01/11/tim-cook-s...
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I think you've got it backwards, it's Apple that needs China's market and China basicallly has them over a barrel on these secondary products. What China has to be careful of is eventually the US/EU decide to get tough on Chinese protectionism and impose significant barriers to goods manufactured in China. And that would also be bad for Apple again since they make their stuff in China.
"it's Apple that needs China's market". I always hear this, but given the experience of most american companies in china, it seems little stretched.
From Ben Thompson at Stratechery:
This is a very big deal. Feel free to ignore anyone making snarky comments about China’s average monthly wage being the same as the price of an iPhone 5C. The two pertinent facts about China are that:
There is tremendous income disparity There are a TON of people
So while many Western markets may have a greater percentage of the population that can afford an iPhone, the absolute number of Chinese who are potential customers is very high as well.
A key sentence from the BBC article on the topic: " The strict rules are also seen as a way to foster the success of indigenous net Chinese firms such as Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent."
China has to play fairly carefully with Apple. On the one hand it's an American company that puts microphones and cameras into the cafes, offices, and bedrooms of many of their citizenry; but on the other hand, with decreasing competitiveness due to rising wages there isn't anything specifically _stopping_ Apple or other American tech companies from moving manufacturing out of China. Foxconn alone employs about 4.3 m…
Manufacturing is slowly moving to be "on demand". That is, a consumer purchases something, then it is built and shipped to them. It doesn't make sense any more for a company to predict market volume and then produce goods to match the prediction, especially since technology turns over so fast. With that in mind, I could see Apple having simple components being produced in a number of different countries, then shipped…
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> Apple's profits are largely due to the cheap labor market (just like many other companies) Foxconn is replacing millions of workers in China with robotics. Couldn't Apple acquire these same robotics, perform their own manufacturing in the US (remember, substantial tax breaks in the US for equipment purchases!), and then lease out any spare capacity. Seems its all coming back to US shores. As a US citizen, I don't m…
Not really since all the components that actually make the phone are also made in China.
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> Apple's profits are largely due to the cheap labor market (just like many other companies) Foxconn is replacing millions of workers in China with robotics. Couldn't Apple acquire these same robotics, perform their own manufacturing in the US (remember, substantial tax breaks in the US for equipment purchases!), and then lease out any spare capacity. Seems its all coming back to US shores. As a US citizen, I don't m…
Not really since all the components that actually make the phone are also made in China.
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"it's Apple that needs China's market". I always hear this, but given the experience of most american companies in china, it seems little stretched.
Apple isn't most American companies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Manufacturing is slowly moving to be "on demand". That is, a consumer purchases something, then it is built and shipped to them. It doesn't make sense any more for a company to predict market volume and then produce goods to match the prediction, especially since technology turns over so fast. With that in mind, I could see Apple having simple components being produced in a number of different countries, then shipped…
How does that fit with the advent of same-day delivery? Presumably the goods can't be assembled that quickly.