Apple Opens Shanghai Store To Tap Big Chinese Market
Опубликовано: 11 Июль, 2010
As part of its expansion plans, Apple Inc. opened a second store in China today to meet the challenges from rivals in the Asian nation. Apple, who wants to grab a larger share of the smartphone market in China, said it plans “many” more Apple stores for China. It had set up its first China store in July 2008 in Beijing. Currently, Apple’s sales trails Nokia and Lenovo, the two leading smartphone and personal-computer maker in China.
Stating that Apple’s product are “quite special,” Zhu Chenqi, a 23- year-old administrative secretary, commented, “In the first place you would be caught by its look and then you would be impressed by its easy applications.” The Apple store attracted customers from teenagers to grandfathers. “Apple stands for a lifestyle,” commented a 27-year-old salesman visitor.
However, analysts doubt whether Apple would be able to compete in the China market, where Nokia has more than 100,000 retail outlets and Lenovo with more than 10,000 outlets. “The conditions are not in place for Apple in China at the moment, as it doesn’t have the sales channels and distribution,” said Aloysius Choong, an analyst at research firm IDC in Singapore. However, Choong responded favorably to reports that more than 2 million iPhones have been sold in the gray market in China. “The reports of the gray market activities for Apple’s products in China shows there is good inherent demand for them,” he said. On the other hand, China Unicom, the only authorized Chinese carrier offering the iPhone, sold reportedly fewer than 1 million.