这篇分别从日本，中国和韩国三个国家略论，苹果的电子产品想要打入亚洲市场，需要面临着怎样不同的困难。首先日本是苹果第一个想要占领的市场，因为政治关系以及日本人的消费水平的原因，苹果想要在日本打开市场并不难。其次是中国，中国占地面积大，英语论文范文，人口众多，是苹果第二个想要占领的市场，但是由于中国东西部经济水平异同较大，消费水平有限，而且本土的电子产品竞争都比较激烈，英语论文题目，所以如果苹果想独占鳌头，价格是必须要解决的问题。最后是韩国，韩国本身拥有精致和高科技产品，像三星和LG。自己的产品已经在电子市场是最好的品牌,并不断竞争,尤其是三星是世界上最大的smarketphone供应商。另一方面,韩国人都是爱国的。有一个“韩国国家优势”,声称韩国文化是世界上最著名的古代文化。这种感觉可能深深埋在他们的思想，这将会导致外来品牌难以进入他们的市场。
Introduction
As the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization and the most valuable brand worldwide, Apple Inc. is more than a company.
Founded by Steve Jobs and his two friends in 1971, Apple is renowned for the creative, humanized and concise designs. In China and Japan, people are willing to spend hours queuing for the latest products and even start waiting at the Apple Retail Store the night before the release day. Steve Jobs made Apple a legend, so did himself.
When looking back the development of Apple Inc., we found that Apple opened its first oversea retail store in Tokyo in 2017. So we may wonder, why Tokyo? We have already known that Asia is an unlimited market, with the most populous area and the explosive growth of purchasing power. Was Apple so predictive to target at the Asia market 11 years ago? As our project is going to discuss how a “global actor” effectively maps a distant world region, we are going to focus on three countries in East Asia, China, Japan and South Korea, which are also three main markets of Apple in Asia. By comparing their geographic, economic and political differences, we want to know how these factors affect Apple’s entry time, marketing strategies and market positioning. For Greater China, there are also different market strategies among mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We will try to discuss the reasons.
Asia is drawing more and more attention from the investors all over the world in recent years. Especially in China, with the rise of middle class and a sharp increase of billionaires, it is regarded as the biggest market of luxuries and other high-end products. Just as Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “For China, the sky’s the limit. I have never seen so many people rise into the middle class who aspire to buy Apple products. It is quickly become number two on our list of top revenue countries.” The great potential can be seen via the following chart.
(source: Apple)
Sales in Asia-Pacific region have already overtaken sales in Europe, and are closing in on sales in North and South America as well. Another chart also illustrates the amazing sales growth of Apple in Asia.
(Source: Apple, the Wall Street Journal)
The growth far exceeded the United States, so that’s the reason why Apple tracked its initiatives in the region. Whereas the recession dragged back the purchasing power of Americans and Europeans, Asia (especially China) remained its strong economic power. For Apple, there are different situations in China, Japan and Korea.
Japan
Japan is an island nation located in East Asia. The unique geographic position greatly facilitates its sea transportation and most of Japan’s industry cities located in costal areas. Japan took an advantage of the geography and vigorously developed the sea trading, which promoted the economy. During Meiji Period, many Japanese enterprises were founded and later Japan became the most developed nation in Asia. Japan distributed a large sum of money into scientific researches and education after World War II, which made Japan even more powerful. Though Japan experienced the Lost Decade in the 1990s due to the Japanese asset price bubble, it is still the third largest national economy in the world nowadays.
Let’s turn back to Apple. When the Apple II was first presented to the public at the first West Coast Computer Fair in 1977, Jobs introduced it to a Japanese chemist named Toshio Mizushima who became the first authorized Apple dealer in Japan. However, at that time, computer is not a commonly-seen device but a machine only used in researches. Later in 2017, Apple opened its first retail store in Ginza, Tokyo, which means Apple officially targeted to international market.
And what’s the situation now? The Wall Street Journal noted in 2017 that in the past two years Japan has emerged as Apple's fastest-growing region, far exceeded United States, Greater China and the rest of Asia. Japan is also home to Apple's biggest profit margins, and the only one of Apple's five regions where operating profit grew in the past fiscal year. according to Tokyo's MM Research Institute, iPhone was Japan's best-selling smartphone, with a 37% market share in the six months ended Sept. 30,2017, Apple's iPad also garnered more than 50% of Japan's tablet-computer market in the fiscal year ended March 2017, said MM Research.
It’s astonishing that even faced with a recession together with increasing aging population, Japan perform a sweeping trend on Apple products. From the first retail store oversea to Apple’s fastest-growing region, why Apple and Japan produced a perfect chemical reaction?
Firstly, Apple’s products are affordable to most Japanese.
As can be seen from the chart above, Japan’s mobile phone users own the highest revenue. In Japan, Apple’s products are not high-end ones.
Secondly, the domestic brands like Sony and Sharps are not so competitive and Samsung Electronics shows a small presence.
China
China is definitely the most potential market. As the world’s second largest national economy, China remains an annual growth of approximately 7% in GDP. But does it mean that most Chinese people enjoy a wealthy and content life?
China is located in the eastern part of the Asian, covering 9.6 million square kilometers (land), which is the third largest country in the world. However, the western and Eastern China presents a huge economic disparity due to the geographic factors. The terrain of western China is much higher than the eastern one, and the western part is relatively isolated. The climate also makes the soil more fertilized in the east. The geographic differences resulted in the disparity of economic development. Most of China’s wealthiest people are in the east.
So how do the geographic factors impact Apple’s strategies and positioning?
Let’s first look back to the history of Apple in China. Even though the first retail store opened in Beijing in 2017, the company had been quietly selling products in mainland China for more than a decade via its network of domestic specialty retailers. According to Apple’s fiscal , the revenue was 22,533 million dollars in 2017. In Q1 2017, Apple’s revenue presented a 29% growth, compared to Q4 2017. According to a new from Wall Street Journal, Apple becomes China's Fifth-Largest Smartphone Vendor in Q4 2017. All statistics show that Apple is populous in China.
However, compared to Japan, the situation and barriers are different.
The statistics provided by Moran Stanley shows that there lies a huge imbalance in the east and west China. For a majority of Chinese, Apple products are still regarded as high-end products and there is even a joke that one has to sell his/her kidney to buy an iPhone. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek (2017), China’s smartphone average selling price is only $ 250 and the price of iPhone is obviously much higher. Unlike Japan, the average living standard of Chinese people is lower since the development is much harder in such a big country. Chinese government has to spend expenditure on the infrastructure in the western China and to guarantee people’s life. The chart in the Japan’s part shows that the average revenue of China’s user is lower than 10 dollars, which is only about one-fifth of that of Japanese.
The second barrier comes to the competition of domestic brands.
We can clearly learn from this chart that domestic brands like Coolpad and Huawei present a continuous growth while Apple reached its peak in 2017 and was subsequently followed by a decline. When iPhone and other Apple electronics still remain relatively high prices, domestic products seem more appealing to Chinese people.
Another chart from IDC shows that the most desirable smartphone price is $100-$200, which means Apple has to cut down the cost of its products. The price in mainland China is much higher than that in Hong Kong, which is also a problem waited for solution.
If Apple still wants to be competitive in Greater China, the price is the biggest barrier and how to bring popularity to the western China is a question worth thinking.
South Korea
South Korea occupies the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. Compared to its northern “friend”, South Korea owns a definite advantage in terms of economy, international status and openness. Meanwhile, South Koreans have a strong sense of national honor. They consider their nation the most powerful one in the world and willing to pay any price to serve their country. Perhaps due to such patriotism, the domestic brands are far more populous than the exotic ones in South Korea. Another element is that their domestic brands like Samsung are competitive and have high quality, which prevents them from being allured by exotic brands such as Apple. Nokia can hard open the South Korean market; Google struggled for years to conquer market but still far behind South Korea’s own search engine NHN.
Is Apple an exception?
It’s hard to find out when Apple first entered South Korea’s market. There is also an interesting fact that South Korea is put in the “Rest of Asia-Pacific” part in Apple’s fiscal earning release s. I guess the revenue is unsatisfactory. Let’s first look at a chart.
The figures from mobile industry analyst firm Flurry's recent look (October 2017) at the mobile device market in South Korea indicates that Samsung still plays a dominant role in South Korea while Apple is expanding its share in the market. Another investigation shows that Apple is the most satisfactory brand in South Korea. Statistics from Koran Herald also shows that iPad takes up 70%-80% market share in South Korea’s tablet PC market, which is much higher than that of Samsung.
It seems that Apple is gradually conquering the market share in its rival’s backyard.
Conclusion
After analyzing the situations in these three countries separately, we may turn back to questions I raised at the very beginning. Why there lies a different in the entry time? It’s obvious that the Japan market is Apple’s first target. Since it’s the most developed country among these three, it’s much easier to conquer the market. Meanwhile their domestic brands are in a relatively weak condition, which provides Apple with opportunities. In addition, Japan always has a friendly relationship with United States, which means American brands will not be excluded in Japan.
Subsequently Apple’s goal seems to be China. Though China is a developing country, it shows super power in recent years, along with great market potentials. The LV and Hermes shops in Lafayette are full of Chinese who drop money without hesitation. Even though there is imbalance in China, the purchasing power of Chinese can not be neglect. Who doesn’t desire to conquer a market with the population of 1.6 billion? Besides, the domestic brands are relatively inferior in quality. But Apple still has to face difficulties on prices and challenges from domestic brands. There may still be a recessive factor, that is, political issue. On March 15, 2017, a series of programs and newss in China revealed the problems of Apple’s after-sales service and the arrogance of some staffs in Apple, which resulted in national criticism. However, is it a coincidence? Sino-US relationship has always been sensitive and Apple may be a victim.
The hardest one seems to be South Korea. For one thing, South Korea owns delicate and hi-tech products themselves like Samsung and LG. Unlike Japan and China, their own products have already been the best brands in electronics market and are continuously competitive, especially Samsung which is the biggest smarketphone vendor in the world. For another, South Koreans are patriotic. There is a “Korean national superiority”, claiming Korean culture is the most distinguished ancient culture in the world. Such perception may be deeply buried in their mind and it’s even harder for exotic brands to get into their market.
From the timeline, we can find out that Apple choose from the easier one to the hardest one. For most part of the East Asia regions, price is definitely the biggest problems. If Apple wants to conquer this market, cutting down the cost is essential, and cooperating with the local carriers is another practical way.
Reference
Amano, T., Einhorn, B., Takeo Y. (December 12, 2017). Apple's Asia Breakthrough. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved from
Bostic K. (October 14, 2017). Apple's iPhone, iPad combine for 14% share in Samsung's home of South Korea. Appleinsider. Retrieved from
Cummins D., Liu S., and Yeh A., (January 2, 2017). Apple’s Foray into China — And the Mind of The New Chinese Consumer. The Lauder Global Business Insight Report 2017: Building Blocks for the Global Economy. Retrieved from
Negishi M., Wakayabashi, D. (November 10, 2017). Apple Finds Surprising Growth Market in Japan. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from
Apple’s Financial History: Reclassified Summery Data. Retrieved from
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