Why does Apple hate Taiwan?

[dr. shdw]

Ok, I am an American studying and living in Taiwan. A place that provides apple with a large of their components. Taiwan is also an excellent computer market. That said why does Apple continually show a distaste for this market.
The evidence:
1. In countries around the world Apple is giving students free ipods when they purchase a new mac. Not in Taiwan. Hong Kong yes, but not Taiwan. This year i expect fewer students will try Macs out of disappointment over the lack of the Back to School free ipod Promotion.
2.Our refurb prices are considerably higher then in other markets. I have been reading threads about people buying the refurb previous generation 2.53 umbp for about 1500 here the price is over 2200 USD please correct me if i am wrong:
http://store.apple.com/tw-edu/product/FB471TA/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
3.Even though the iphone's were made by a Taiwanese company we were among the last countries for the iphone to enter.

I really love macs and want to toss this windows piece of junk off my balcony but i feel terrible for how Apple is treating Taiwanese consumers. Can someone explain why Apple does not like Taiwan?
Sorry for ranting... but i think Apple is wrong on this one.

Move? Clearly Apple is an American company..and not Taiwanese

Why do they have to have the same promotions in every country? Also localizations aren't exactly easy and Chinese is one of the hardest languages in the world to translate/learn/understand.

 

[Gregintosh]

These are the challenges of global marketing. I guess everyone expects the same level of service and even prices around the world, but that is just not possible. Everyone knows that some countries are more expensive to ship to or have different regulations, which by necessity varies the costs involved.

With different costs, it is impossible to have the same prices and make similar levels of profit. It is unreasonable to expect, therefore, that things will cost the same name no matter where in the world you buy them.

Same goes for promotions. In Marketing (speaking as a Master of Commerce in Marketing from an Australian Uni), you have certain calculations you can perform to see if running a promo is going to be worth it.

You factor in the costs of running the promotions along with benefits or other potential complications. Perhaps they determined that in Taiwan, not enough people converted to macs during the last promotions or the promotions were cutting into sales later in the year (with everyone buying only during the promotion period) by a bigger factor than would be profitable.

It could be possible, if everyone in Taiwan was just holding out for the back to school promo every year. Apple counts on a certain number of people to wait or take advantage of it, but they are also counting on heaps of people buying computers year round too (they could not stay profitable if they extended the free iPod promo to everyone, or made their only sales with the promo).

We just don't know the real reason but those are some possibilities. I am sure there are very good reasons though.

With a corporation that has millions (if not billions) on the line, you can bet that no strategic decision is arbitrary (no one threw a dart at a world map and said wherever it lands there will be no iPod promotion). In fact, I would bet that they've had internal employees and external consultants crunching numbers and analyzing the market for a long time prior to making the decision.

I guess you just have to buy what is available, or use the global resource of the internet to secure a better deal from overseas (if possible).

 

[TK2K]

Well the profit margins are probably down in other countires due to failing economies around the world and exchange rates. Honestly, that's probably the reason for cancling the promotion, apple can't make as much money in come countries as it once could, so they can't afford to give you a free ipod. pretty simple really, i'm surprised it hasn't hapened in more places.

p.s. this isn't so say OMG YOUR ECONOMIES ARE DEAD USA #1 we're pretty ****ed too, just to say that comparatively the G8 (well, now G20 but..) are a lot more economically sound then other places

 

[whooleytoo]

Apple's a US-centric company (unsurprisingly, being US based and with the US market being so large), and every other country gets a subset of the products/services/schemes which Apple offers in the US.

Apple's just following the numbers - if you want them to show more love to your nation, get rich and start making babies.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Taiwan is far from the only country that doesnt have that promotion. I would be surprised if more than 5 countries had it.

Also companies dont pick and choose what countries to do things in, a company as large as Apple couldnt manage all territories from one office in america, each territory has their own branch and they make their own decisions on promotions and prices. If you are unhappy that Taiwan doesnt have that promotion then tell the Taiwan Apple headquarters, it was their choice.

 

[Gasu E.]

Well, 23 states maintain diplomatic relations, including the Vatican, so it must be a country.

The Vatican isn't a country.

 

[Redgiemental]

It's a separate sovereign state which allows it to operate in the many people would associate with "countries" so while you are technically right about it not being a country it has the right to act like one.

It can even issue passports for instance.

On topic, you can't blame Apple US for this, it's up to your local branch. Unfortunately you are probably considered a low-priority market by Apple HQ in Cupertino.

This has made me feel much better about living in the UK.

 

[bsolomonny]

The questions and the facts are clear:
All new models here (in Taiwan) are about the same price as in my birthplace (NY), when adjusted for currency and NY sales tax. So it is fair to eliminate currency issues. I was wondoring why the refurb price of one particular model is 700 usd more then the us refurb price. That is not strange to anyone? It is more expensive then the new version with a higher clock speed and lower gpu memory (256 instead of 512).

Regarding the Back to School Promo, this was more of a complaint. As an MBA student focusing on marketing, i was wondering was the savings from the soon to be discontinued ipods worth the negative consumer sentiment that Apple will certainly incur in this market.

They had the promo for the past 2 years here. Students here know that the promo is going on in Hong Kong and many other markets smaller than Taiwan.

Like any entitlement, it burns when someone takes it away. I think is was a misstep. Apples does not lose money on these deals. Their costs are way below their price to the consumer even with a free ipod touch. Their strategy has been to get people to switch from Windows by trying their devices. I expect fewer new customers this year than last.

 

[kockgunner]

Actually Taiwan never got the first generation iphone and we were among the last places to get the iphone 3g.

That is not the point.

Why would apple stop the promotion this year?

Canada never got the original iPhone either and we're right beside the US. It's probably due to the country in question's regulations that determines what products or promotions are offered.

And yes, the Vatican is a country.

 

[bsolomonny]

Canada never got the original iPhone either and we're right beside the US. It's probably due to the country in question's regulations that determines what products or promotions are offered.

And yes, the Vatican is a country.

Can someone please tell me which countries have outlawed free ipods? Who votes for that?

 

[Gregintosh]

As an MBA student focusing on marketing, i was wondering was the savings from the soon to be discontinued ipods worth the negative consumer sentiment that Apple will certainly incur in this market.

You might be right that in the long term it may sour people on Apple but there are two things you have to be aware of:

1. Apple's products have no close substitute. Let's face it, even though you could switch to Windows chances are you won't. Once you go mac, it would be hard to go back over a dispute with the company since you would have to give up a system you love. So you really have no choice if you want Mac OS (except hackintosh), you will have to buy regardless of the price.

A year or two later after some new product launches and awesome improvements, you will forget your little squabble with Apple anyway and gladly fork over the money for their next gen systems. Basically, you'll get over it and so will most people who feel "screwed" at the moment. Those who leave the company and buy Microsoft again weren't the kind of loyal customers Apple caters to anyway.

2. What you may not be learning in your MBA courses is that it's a quarterly world. What I mean by that is that in business school you learn how great it is to plan for the long term and how profitable in the long run some decisions can be (like having promotions like this to grow market share, for example).

The truth of the business world is that executives and managers are judged on quarterly performance. Not taking a quarterly margin hit for giving away free iPods is what they might need to get their bonuses. They don't care about the impact of Apple's sales in 5 years because by then they will have moved on to another company.

That is the sad fact of having professional management (that is business school graduates like me and soon you who are trained to run any business), it creates a permanent "management class" that moves from the top of one company to the top of the next, looking only to cash in on running the business for a little while with no regard to future prospects of the company (even if the prospects become disastrous because of their actions).

 

[NT1440]

How does that translate into hate?

 

[Randman]

...says the guy who lives in America and probably got his iPhone on launch day.

This time I did. But I lived in Singapore for 8 years and had a Nokia N95 until coming back to the US shortly before the 3G was released.

I didn't live in Taiwan but many of the Asian countries follow similar operating patterns and Apple Singapore is basically a franchise of Apple and doesn't always follow Cupertino to the letter.
I assume that Taiwan is quite similar. So, rather than complaining on the US-centric forums, he should contact Apple Taiwan and try and find what's up.