Apple’s Domination Over in Southeast Asia
Traditionally, Southeast Asia is seen as THE place to look to as far as cool new gadgets go. Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok – these are the places where the earliest hi-tech adopters dwell, mostly because new devices are treated as status items by white-collar workers in the crowded Asian cities. Surprisingly, their newest technological fetish is no longer bearing the fruity, slightly nibbled-on logo…
In Southeast Asia, it’s common for 20-something office workers and businessmen to display their phones or tablets proudly while commuting or eating out. They’re toting their new gizmos along everywhere to prove how cool and edgy they are. Increasingly, the items peacocked about by young hipsters are not made by Apple, and it’s more than simply about the eye-candy factor.
There’s been talk of „iPhone fatigue”, whereby people are simply getting tired of the Apple’s overbearing presence on the market, and nowhere has this domination been more apparent than in Southeast Asia. In Hong Kong, for instance, people camp out Apple stores days in advance just to get their hands on a new iPhone or iPad. But it’s more than just an Apple-oriented craze: whatever was deemed cool and hip in these areas was a very good indicator of the overall global trends. „Singapore and Hong Kong tend to be, from an electronics perspective, leading indicators on what is going to be hot in Western Europe and North America, as well as what is going to take off in the region,” says Jim Wagstaff of Jam Factory, a company developing apps in Singapore. This dependency works both ways though; whatever becomes LESS popular there is soon likely to fall out of customer’s favor elsewhere.
„After Steve Jobs died, it seems the element of surprise in product launches isn’t that great anymore” – Janet Chan, 25, advertising executive (Hong Kong)
It may be that the Southeast Asia trendsetters’ fussiness will actually become a proverbial last straw in breaking the camel’s back, as latest data show that Asians are choosing Android and various mobile devices over Apple’s iPhone and iPad, harming the giant’s current sales in the process. In order to stand out from the i-prefixed crowd – which is still pretty huge – they’re clamoring for the likes of Galaxy Tabs, Kindles, HTC smartphones and other non-Apple-made mobile electronics.
„It’s become so commonplace to see people with iPads and iPhones [that] you lose your cool edge [in] having one.” – Narisara Konglua, marketing manager (Bangkok)
One apparent benefit of the change is how little it costs to use non-Apple tech. Android being a free and open system, it already has the lowest entry fee on the market in terms of software: it’s actually mostly free, and if it’s not free, it’s at least free-to-try. But the savings don’t stop here; on average, a Samsung tablet will set the user back 2 or 3 times less than a similar device with an „i” in front of its name. Similarly, HTC smartphones offer much cheaper solutions, while actually giving users longer battery life, larger screens and better usability, especially when inputting pictograms or hieroglyphics.
Happiness of an average Chinese or Hongkongese user is more than just a local advantage for the big boys in the mobile electronics industry. Southeast Asia is the fastest-growing market for smartphones, as a research company GfK shows: according to them, in 2012 Asians bought 78% more of these devices than a year earlier. It would bode well for Apple, were it not for a slew of other, more worrying statistics. One figure, concerning Singapore, is provided by Statcounter – a company that measures traffic going in and out of the world’s largest websites to observe ongoing trends. From data they have gathered, it seems that Apple’s combined market share for iPad and iPhone has dropped from 72% of the market a year ago to 50% this month. This sharp decline coincided with booming popularity of Android-running devices, whose market share is now a whopping 43% compared to just 20% a year previous. Similar trends are observed elsewhere in the region, as in Hong Kong Apple-based phones and tablets are experiencing a sharp drop from 45% in 2012 to just 30% of the market this year. The overall picture becomes clearer considering the latest Wall Street reports, according to which Apple’s shares dropped significantly over the last two weeks following their announcement of reducing the amount of iPhones 5 to be produced.
Whatever the reason for the decline in popularity among Asians – be it fashion choice, a need to stand out or plain-ole penny-pinching – Apple’s got to do something extraordinary in order to win back the discerning Asian consumer.
VOCABULARY
to dwell – mieszkać
device – urządzenie
status item – przedmiot statusu
white-collar worker – pracownik umysłowy
to bear sth – nosić coś
nibbled-on – uszczknięty, nadjedzony
to display – pokazywać
to commute – dojeżdżać do pracy
to tote sth along – taszczyć coś ze sobą
gizmo – wichajster, ustrojstwo
edgy – fajowy, bajerancki
eye-candy – coś przyjemnego dla oka, uczta dla oczu
indicator – wskaźnik
to take off – wystartować, tu: odnieść sukces
launch – wypuszczenie (produktu na rynek)
executive – menedżer szczebla kierowniczego
trendsetter – ktoś, kto wyznacza nowe trendy, pionier mody lub stylu
fussiness – wybrzydzanie
proverbial – przysłowiowy
last straw will break the camel’s back – ostatnia kropla przepełni czarę
to harm – zaszkodzić
to stand out from sth – wyróżniać się spośród czegoś
to clamor for sth – podnosić wrzawę o coś, głośno się czegoś domagać
commonplace – powszechny
benefit – korzyść
entry fee – tu: poprzeczka cenowa, pułap kosztów
free-to-try – demo (o programie)
to set sb back X – kosztować kogoś X
battery life – czas pracy na baterii
to input – wprowadzać
according to – zgodnie z, według
concerning – odnośnie (do)
to provide – zapewnić, dostarczyć
to measure – mierzyć
traffic – ruch (internetowy, uliczny)
ongoing – obecny, trwający
to gather – zebrać
decline – spadek
to coincide with sth – zbiegać się w czasie z czymś
whopping – ogromny
plain-ole… – stary, dobry…
penny-pinching – skąpstwo
extraordinary – nadzwyczajny
discerning – wymagający
-by Prochor Aniszczuk
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