What a difference a couple of years makes. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), a tiny player in China as little as two years ago, has suddenly become a new dominant force in both China’s computing and cellphone scene, taking on traditional market leaders Lenovo (HKEx: 992) and Nokia (Helsinki: NOK1V.HE) in their respective spaces. The US maker of wildly popular iPhone cellphones and iPad tablet PCs officially surpassed Lenovo in terms of total China sales in the quarter through June (English article), while it also picked up share on Nokia, whose China sales plunged 41 percent in the first quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner (English article). At this point, Apple looks nearly unstoppable in China, with companies scrambling to import more iPads to meet ever-growing demand and the country’s leading mobile carrier, China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) on the cusp of signing a landmark deal to offer iPhones in China that will run on its 3G network. The pirates have been making iPhone and iPad look-alikes for a while now, and even retailers are getting in on the action with a recent headline-making knock-off Apple store opening up in southwestern Yunnan province. (English article) Apple’s sudden surge in China, the world’s biggest cellphone market by subscribers and the second biggest PC market, must be coming as a shock to both Lenovo and Nokia, neither of which has strong offerings in the smartphone or tablet PC space to fend off the attack. If Apple continues to surge, which seems likely, look for Nokia and especially Lenovo to see their China business start to weaken in the next 1-2 years as each looks on powerlessly at China’s new fascination with this innovative US tech giant.
Bottom line: Apple’s sudden surge in China will spell headaches in the next 1-2 years for Lenovo and Nokia, which each lack strong offerings to counter popular iPhones and iPads.
真是三十年河东三十年河西！两年前在中国还势单力薄的苹果公司(AAPL.O: 行情)突然间成了中国电脑和手机行业新的主导力量，向传统的市场领头羊联想(0992.HK: 行情)和诺基亚(NOK1V.HE: 行情)分别发起了挑战。截至六月份的第二季度，苹果在华电脑总销量正式超过联想，同时还夺取了诺基亚的市场份额。据市场研究公司Gartner的数据，诺基亚2011年第一季度在中国的销量骤降41%。目前，苹果在中国的发展势如破竹，各大公司竞相争取进口更多的iPad，以满足中国不断增加的需求。中国移动(0941.HK: 行情)(CHL.N: 行情)接近签署一项具有里程碑意义的协议，在华引进使用其3G网络的iPhone手机。而盗版厂商们则一直在生产与iPhone和iPad酷似的电子产品，就连零售商也加入了“山寨”行列，云南昆明的“高仿真”苹果零售店就是典型案例。苹果在中国的突然崛起无疑令联想和诺基亚深为震惊，而後两者在智能手机和平板电脑领域均无强势产品可以进行反击。如果苹果继续高歌奋进，且这一趋势似乎也很有可能，诺基亚，尤其是联想未来1-2年在中国的业务肯定会缩水，因两者面对中国人对苹果产品的迷恋却无能为力。
一句话：苹果在中国的突然崛起会在未来1-2年内让联想和诺基亚头疼不已，因後两者均缺少可以抗衡iPhone和iPad的强势产品。
Related postings 相关文章:
◙ Apple’s COO Comes Calling on China Mobile 苹果首席运营官造访中移动
◙ Apple Takes A Second Look at China for iPad 2 苹果重新考虑中国市场
◙ Unicom Takes on Apple, Google, Microsoft … I Don’t Think So 联通想挑战苹果、谷歌、微软……？我不看好
more focused on sales and marketing, setting them apart from previous efforts that were mostly focused on using China as a base for cheap manufacturing. Both are aimed at capitalizing on an expected spending bonanza that will see China spend billions of dollars each year to provide basic healthcare to its less affluent majority under an ongoing reform plan. One interesting difference here is that Merck has found its partner in a smaller New York-listed company with market cap of about $600 million, whereas Pfizer’s partner is listed in Shanghai with a larger market cap of around $3.2 billion. I tend to like the smaller, overseas-listed companies like Simcere as they are often more entrepreneurial and adaptable to market conditions. Bigger, Shanghai-listed firms like Hisun tend to have better connections, which are obviously important in this major government-led overhaul of China’s health care system. But they also tend to move more slowly, and their decisions are often based as much or even more on non-economic considerations as they are on what’s best for business. Still, both of these partnerships look good to me in light of China’s health care reform, and investors clearly like the Simcere deal, bidding its stock up nearly 5 percent in Friday trading.
Software (Nasdaq: CDCS), both issued the same generic statements, each saying it was notified of being out of compliance with Nasdaq rules for failing to file its annual report by the required deadline. (
Alibaba’s Taobao Mall, the B2C portion of Taobao that was split off into a separate entity under a restructuring last month (
After saying on several occasions earlier this year that 4G licenses won’t be issued for at least the next 2-3 years, China’s telecoms regulator is subtly shifting its message, no doubt under heavy pressure from China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL), which would like to see such licenses issued sooner rather than later. Chinese media are now quoting an official from the regulator at an event this week saying that 4G licenses will be awarded when the technology is “mature.” (
Yesterday I wrote that video- and music-sharing site Xunlei’s New York listing plan was fast shrinking, and today it looks like it’s disappeared completely, the victim of a perfect storm of market- and company-related factors. In a tersely worded statement, Xunlei said simply that it had delayed the offering “due to market conditions”. (
ost
CNOOC’s (HKEx: 883; NYSE: CEO) $2.1 billion gamble on a bankrupt oil sands business in Canada rings of a recent Chinese M&A refrain, which has seen Chinese companies across all sectors swoop in and grab struggling overseas assets for what look like bargain prices but end up becoming major headaches. In this case, CNOOC’s purchase of OPTI Canada certainly looks good on paper. (
q: GOOG)? At the company level, Chinese media reports that seven major record labels, including Sony Music (Tokyo: 6758) and Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) are suing Xunlei for 20.5 million yuan surely isn’t good. (
Two developments this week in the steel sector highlight how China’s determination to achieve self-sufficiency in iron ore procurement won’t be easy or cheap, as Beijing tries to free itself from dependence on the global trio of Rio Tinto (London: RIO), Vale (NYSE: VALE) and BHP Billiton (Sydney: BHP). In the first of the developments, private conglomerate Sichuan Hanlong has been rebuffed in its $1.9 billion bid to take over all of Australia’s Sundance Resources (Sydney: SDL), in which it already owns a 19 percent stake. (
