Many publications in the Chinese media continued to attack Apple, due primarily to the fact that Apple does not comply with Chinese law, as warranties are supposed to be at least two years in China. News agencies Xinhua, CCTV, the People’s Daily newspaper. and others assaulted the company due to these limited warranties. This is a huge problem for Apple’s sales, as there is an increasingly amount of competition for products in China. Some believe that the attacks are due to the reaction in the US to the Chinese firm Huawei’s actions. Whether or not this is true, this is a big hurdle for Apple to overcome, and the company will need to figure out a way to quickly rehabilitate its relationship with not only Chinese consumers, but also gain favor with those that control the media.
A start was Tim Cook’s signed apology posted on Apple’s Chinese language website, a demand that was made by the China Consumer’s Association (government funded group). Cook guarantees that repairs to teh iPhones will be made with new and not refurbished parts, and that the new phones will be given 1-year warranties from the day of repair. How the Chinese consumers react to this apology remains to be seen.
It will be interesting to see how Chinese consumers respond to Cook’s apology. It seems as though the apology failed to mention that Apple will in the future attempt to work with Chinese law. Another point of interest is the fact that the products are allowed to be sold in the Chinese market if they do not coincide with national laws in the first place.
I wonder if Tim Cook will ever strongly push the Chinese government to enforce intellectual property laws in China. Chinese companies knockoffs Apple products and sell them for cheap prices. It seems that Apple is not very concerned now, considering that iphones are luxury goods and these knockoffs are certainly inferior goods so their markets do not compete. However, if a Chinese company were to make a high quality copy of the iphone could apple hold any power in protecting its patents?
Here are two links about knockoff products. You can even buy a knockoff for yourself from the second link with “worldwide free shipping.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/08/10/introducing-the-china-hiphone-5-apple-knock-off-sells-for-35/
http://www.eforchina.com/list/169/HiPhone-.htm
Would a 2-year warranty really be expensive? There are no moving parts, but I suppose constant exposure to high temperatures would degrade chips, and the grey area expands over time (“a smashed phone is your problem not ours” is one thing, but at what point do you draw the line between a well-used 20-month-old phone from an abused one?). With a 40% gross margin such expenses seem easy to cover.
Furthermore, this may be more credible than a similar guarantee from a Chinese company. Perhaps China is actually doing Apple a favor?!
Now knockoff products are one thing, ones that have the right chip and software another. Chinese consumers are pretty sophisticated, they know “buyer beware”.