Carolina Milanesi, Research Director, Gartner
Although this is a valid concern, I really don’t think it’s a problem for Apple, even in a country like Apple. If Apple had to worry about competing on price, then it never would have attained the position it is in right now. This is something that the analysts simply don’t get and apparently will never get.
We can make these arguments all day, but facts are facts, people buy Apple products, iPads, iPad minis, Macs, etc, because they are Apple, not because they got a good deal and it runs generic apps. Owning an Apple product means a lot of things to the target customer, such as quality, status, etc. It has little to do with money. People are more than willing to go broke, so long as it is in style, Apple style.
“The market in China is very polarized. The high end wants iPad and [it’s] the low end that turns to white-box. Nothing in between is really picking up in China,” Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for Gartner told CNBC.com.
“Users look at tablets as a cheaper computing device rather than a status device for the time being and quality has improved dramatically over the past year. We also need to remember that hardware is the most important part over ecosystem.”
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