Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. takes Chinese consumer tastes into account when it designs many of its products, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, underscoring the country’s importance to the iPhone maker.
The company considers details including color palettes to suit local tastes, Cook said in an interview in the June 17 Chinese-language version of Bloomberg Businessweek, published under license by Modern Media Holdings.
The decision to offer a gold iPhone last year reflects in part the popularity of that color among Chinese users, he added. Greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, is now Apple’s second-largest market and has become a battleground for the company as it vies with Samsung Electronics Co. and Xiaomi Corp. for smartphone supremacy.
This is a statement that will surprise some but really shouldn’t. China is poised to take over as Apple and the world’s largest market for consumer goods. It makes good business sense to cater to it whenever possible.
GOLD IS BEST
GOLD IS BEST
GOLD IS BEST
GOLD IS BEST
Does this mean regional cultural differences will dictate the worldwide available variety of Apple products, or that styles of product might vary by country at some point?
I’m not sure, but I’ll bet there will be almost as many gold iPad Pros available on release day in China as there are in the US.
Poised? They already have a middle class larger than the US population, and they currently consume one third of the world’s luxury goods.
While gold symbolizes prosperity, it is not like the color gold is splashed everywhere in the workplace in China. If the iPad Pro is targeted at the workplace, gold will not necessarily be the dominant choice there.
Their middle class has always been larger than the US population. Middle class is by definition the middle of the class. There is 3 times more humans in China than the US. Their middle tier is always larger than the population of the US.