I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.
There is still an app gap for me. Amazon's owned Pillpack still does not have an Android app.
Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
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Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#72There's been quite a bit of discussion on how WeChat is basically the OS of Chinese smartphone users, so as long as a phone runs that the switching costs are pretty low. I wonder if there's the possibility of something similar happening in the US/West. I've been tempted to try Android but Facetime & iMessage are pretty good at keeping me on iOS.
That happened with the web, ironically helping Apple's 'desktop' marketshare. To a large extent, this has always been the case with mobile (particularly if you want to think back to pre-app iOS, where the only lock-in was perhaps with iTunes music). Personally, iMessage and shared iPhoto galleries between a dozen family members around the globe make it fairly "sticky" with me, but there's no reason I couldn't just co…
> Personally, iMessage and shared iPhoto galleries between a dozen family members around the globe make it fairly "sticky" with me, but there's no reason I couldn't just consume the photos on desktop.
Just last night I re-evaluated the various photo services that were of most interest to me (Apple Photos, Google Photos, OneDrive, Amazon Photos), and settled on Apple Photos. As a macOS/Windows/Android user, who is normally pretty aggressively platform-agnostic I see abandoning mobile access to my photo library as the least-bad option available.
Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#73and that's OK Apple is not aiming for mass market. In the same way that Chanel or Coach is not aiming for mass market.
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Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really don't understand why anyone is paying $300+ for a t-shirt when you can get really amazing t-shirts for $10.
Can't speak for other countries but in India, people buy iphones only as a status symbol. They don't really care about privacy or excellent hardware or Apple ecosystem.
Do you have any data to back that up ?
Or are you suggesting you speak for 1.3 billion people.
Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#75People aren't going to buy a $850 apple when they can get a $300-400 (equivalent in Yuan) oppo or xiaomi that is very near top end flagship Android specs.
Apple has never tried to compete on price and as such continues to capture most of the profit in the industry. Seems like a good business plan to me. https://gadgetmatch.com/apple-samsung-huawei-global-smartpho...
Never tried to compete on price? Then what were the basic "c" and "se" plastic bodied iPhone models?
Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#76Neither pricing nor the economy fully explains why Apple's suddenly doing so poorly in China and not in the US or EU. They're triggers certainly, but not the root cause. There's one keystone here-- WeChat. In the US and EU, Apple has people locked into their ecosystem. That doesn't apply to China. WeChat is their alpha and their omega. They use it not only for chatting, as you might expect from its name-- WeChat is i…
To add to this, if you travel to China, find someone ahead of time that you can prearange to send USD to in exchange for red envelopes in WeChat. Getting it setup with any of your own banking is a royal PITA, and many places only accept wechat payment or alipay.
Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#77I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.
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Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Market for $300 T-shirts is very small. Niche, not really consumer.
Yeah NO ONE has ever made money selling luxury consumer goods, ever. /s
LMVH made about $50 billion in revenue last year.
Not great. But okay for a tiny market like luxury consumer goods.
Probably should look at shutting up shop at some point.
Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key differentiator is that in China your smartphone can in many ways be abstracted down to the platform that runs WeChat. So Apple's key lock-ins like iMessage and FaceTime don't matter and it has to compete on price. Apple greatly increased prices in the US/EU also and many of these regions are facing a recession too, but according to Tim Cook's letter those consumers didn't abandon the iPhone. What's unique to…
Hmm... I'm not convinced by that. At least in the UK, I don't know many people who use FaceTime (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the most popular video chat software). People do use iMessage, but that falls back to SMS if you don't have an iphone, and SMS messages are universally free here these days.
SMS... Stone Age?
Re: Apple Priced Itself Out of Shrinking Chinese Smartphone Market
#80I really don't understand why anyone is paying $1000+ for a phone when you can get really amazing phones for $300.
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