China-based Meizu is coming out with a similar touchscreen phone with better specs called Minione. I believe it will probably target China first. Unless Apple has a bunch of Chinese developers, Meizu has the advantage when developing a phone for China.
its my prediction that china will be the first country to offer the iphone without a revenue sharing agreement.
steve jobs and his cronies are nothing more than another round eye turning up on their doorstep making demands which the chinese will never agree to. i get the feeling you bloggers don't understand the chinese all that well.
and yes i do own apple stock.
"Unless Apple has a bunch of Chinese developers"
Can't speak to the iPhone, but the Mac, I am told, does Chinese characters way better than Windows.
"its my prediction that china will be the first country to offer the iphone without a revenue sharing agreement."
My prediction: They'll get an agreement, but the "inscrutable" Chinese will raid the till. Which is no huge tragedy; Apple will still, at least, get the revenue from the hardware.
Chinese are not stupid to pay a couple of hundred USDs Apple tax for this crippled shit made in their own country for a couple of ten USDs...
This reminds me of the Bond film Casio Royale. This is a high stakes poker game and there is serious money on the table. The high rollers include Apple, China Mobile, China Unicom, Shenzhen Aisidi and Dixintong. Part of the game involves China Mobile execs releasing anonymous statements to the press …
"Our business model does not entail sharing revenue with terminal producers -- we don't share revenue. That's a Chinese rule," one executive told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Then more leaks to the press –
“China Mobile’s talks with Apple quitted due to the divarication on revenue sharing.”
Apple smells a buff and without hesitation raises the stakes. Steve Jobs and Co. engage China Unicom in earnest discussions and concurrently court a direct-to-consumer distributor - Shenzhen Aisidi. Are these counter bluffs by Apple? Perhaps. Can China Mobile risk that this is only an Apple negotiating tactic? No! China Mobile may have the biggest stack of chips (350 million subscribers), but the vast majority of their subscribers are pay-as-you go. And China Mobile’s most valued customers – smart-phone owners on contract – are showing interest in a phenomena known as "Ai Feng" ("Love Craze"). Yep, Al-Feng is the iPhone and it’s a bone fide black-market hit.
China Mobile’s “talks are off” posturing could have caused them to lose a major pot. But they played it smart. They issued a statement to the press and let the world know that they remain in negotiations with Apple over the iPhone.
Good move! It’s game on… “Now, about that revenue sharing thing …. “
Regardless of whether China Mobile blinked (and they may well have) ... when a deal is eventually done, I would not be surprised to read that Apple has signed a contract without "revenue sharing." This will be part of the official press release issued by Apple and TBA China carrier (Mobile or Unicom). IMO this will be a “face saving” move as the terms of the deal might describe ongoing "service fees" paid to Apple to support initial activation, technical support and ongoing iPhone upgrades via iTunes. These service fees will essentially be revenue sharing by another name. Semantics will be important given the public proclamations (“we don’t share revenue”) by China telecommunications execs. Calling revenue sharing by another name (and repositioning the rationale for said payments) might be an important means to allow execs to save face.
~ Dan B
"Mac, I am told, does Chinese characters way better than Windows"
I tried to search for statistics on Apple computer marketshare in China but couldn't. Must be close to zero. So I assume Apple does not have very many Chinese developers.
No computer marketshare means not much bargaining power for the iPhone.
"So I assume Apple does not have very many Chinese developers."
"Localizing" (changing the languages) of apps is pretty easy.
"I tried to search for statistics on Apple computer marketshare in China but couldn't. Must be close to zero"
Proabably. But Taiwan probably has some.
I had a Mac SE in Beijing in 1989! Just when Computerland pulled the plug.
As for chinese developers, Apple had offices in Taiwan and Hong Kong back then. I'm positive they still do. Plenty of developers in both places as I'd go visit whenever I was in town to get the latest Chinese OS updates and fonts, and they cover both types of chinese characters, simplified and complex.
I've gotten chinese emails on my iPhone, and the characters look great!
As far as iPhone bargaining power goes, there's only one major carrier and that's China Mobile. It's no big deal if Apple doesn't revenue-share, they just build it into the price. China is the world's 3rd largest luxury goods market now, and buying an iPhone is a status symbol, which means price is not the deciding factor.
My mom has a friend in Shanghai, who has known about the iPhone since Steve's MW announcement, and she's over 80 years old! Apple iPods sell quite well in Shanghai, btw. There are kiosks that sell Apple stuff, including Macs, in Carrefours and other high-visibility locations.
Can China afford the iPhone? In short - yes. I stumbled upon an interesting report re luxury goods consumption in China and the numbers tell a compelling story:
• An estimated 300,000 millionaires and rising.
• A middle class of around 250 million people.
• A 1.3 billion population that spent US $6 billion on luxury goods last year (2006)
• Goldman Sachs predicts that China’s consumption of luxury goods will rise from 12 percent to 29 percent by 2015 – making it second only to Japan – in a global luxury market worth an estimated US $80 billion a year.
A few new updates:
China Unicom Vice President, Li Zheng Mao, said Tuesday (Dec 4th) that China Unicom Ltd. has "not begun talks with Apple Inc. to offer the popular iPhone." But China Unicom is still "open to cooperating with Apple."
If true, this bolsters the argument that China Mobile is the central focus of current Apple iPhone partnership discussions.
Meanwhile, iPhone interest in China continues to grow.
From a web article at Maverick China
http://www.maverickchina.com/blo...blog/author/ed/
"iPhones a Part of China’s Flourishing Gray Market for Handsets
A recent scour of the cell phone markets in Beijing shows where at least some of the 250,000 iPhones sold in the US, but never activated with AT&T have ended up. For a $150 mark-up off the US retail price ($400 for the 8GB model), unlocked iPhones are available for purchase at no less than two large shopping centers - Yaxiu, which is notorious for selling all types of fake branded goods and is a popular tourist shopping stop, and Nurenjie, a popular shopping area frequented by local trendsetters and fashion enthusiasts. Locked iPhones brought to the Landao computer store in downtown Beijing can be unlocked in a few hours for a RMB 500 fee (~$67).
These gray market iPhones, however, still only make up a small portion of the gray market handset sales in China, which we estimate to be as high as 25% in urban areas and over 40% in rural areas. In most electronics retail outlets in Beijing, grey market handsets are readily available. Readily available gray market handsets include illegally imported iPhones and Blackberries, as well as knock-off Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola handsets."
http://www.cheap-flights-beijing.com/
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