“苹果”中国热：非你所想

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“苹果”中国热：非你所想

iPhone Growth in China: It Isn’t What You Think

“苹果”中国热：非你所想

                               
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The 8 million iPhones that Apple sold in China last quarter are a lot like exotic pets: They’re cute and they make great gifts for rich young men to give to their girlfriends. But outside of their native ecosystem, their survival prospects don’t look very good.

上个季度800万苹果手机在中国出售，苹果手机就是外星来物那样：他们如此可爱，让那些官二代们把它当成礼物送给自己的妹子。但是在中国以外的环境当中，他们的生存状态可不是很好

                               
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Nathan T Washburn

作者：Nathan T Washburn

                               
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The unexpected sales boom in China (8 million is my rough estimate) went a long way toward offsetting the company’s less-than-robust performance in the U.S. market and helps explain Apple’s record-breaking profits. Analysts and investors are excited by Apple’s performance in China, but predictions of the company’s sustained growth there are premature.

苹果手机在中国的意外热销（据我粗略估计大约有800万台）很大程度上弥补了公司在美国国内的销售低迷。市场帮助苹果公司创造了破纪录的利润数据。分析人员和投资者对苹果在中国市场的业绩非常兴奋，但是预测公司的持续增长还为时尚早。

In its native U.S. ecosystem, the iPhone functions beautifully. But take it to China and the device just isn’t very happy. To start with, more than half of the 30 million iPhone users in China have unlocked their phones (a hint that something isn’t right) and are using them on an unauthorized network (China Mobile) that until recently limited them to 2G data speeds. Try accessing Youku (China’s version of YouTube) on a 2G network. Probably not going to happen.

在美国本土的销售环境当中，苹果手机的功能相当完善。但是将它带到中国的话，设备也许运行的并不完整。首先，有超过一半的中国IPhone手机用户把他们的手机刷机解锁（这中间可能暗含了侵权的发生），并且使用未经授权的网络（中国移动）而且2G网络的速度也限制了数据传输速度。在中国通过2G网络访问优酷网（中国的视频网络类youtube）几乎是不可能的。

And then there’s the problem of input. Apple’s U.S.-centric R&D efforts have failed to produce a Chinese-friendly input system. This is a serious problem, because texting is an integral part of Chinese life. Rather than use the laborious system that Apple designed (reminiscent of early Chinese input systems), many Chinese iPhone owners jailbreak their phones and install third-party software that drastically simplifies the process.

此外，还有其他问题产生了。苹果公司的美国研发总部在试图生产一款针对中国用户更友好的系统当中失败了。这是一系列的问题，因为短信在中国人的生活当中有很重要的地位。而使用苹果的系统几乎很少出现（这让人想起了早期的中文输入系统），很多中国苹果手机用户把自己的手机“越狱”装上第三方的更简单易用的输入法。

Jailbreaking is wildly popular for other reasons too. It allows Chinese users to download any of the App Store applications for free and facilitates access to third-party applications, which is important because applications designed specifically for China are few and far between in the App Store. Music and movies also can be downloaded for free and shared with others on iPhone user forums.

手机“越狱”广泛的存在还有其他的原因。它能让用户在苹果的在线商城下载任何免费的应用程序或更加容易的获取第三方应用，这是非常重要的。因为中国几乎不存在丰富设计应用的程序商店。电影和音乐也可以免费的在其他手机论坛内下载和共享。

Siri — the most attractive new feature driving iPhone 4S sales — does not work in Chinese and even struggles in English if you have a strong Chinese accent. Finally, warranties are invalidated by the unlocking and jailbreaking, which is a good thing since 30 million iPhone owners would quickly overwhelm the six official Apple stores in China.

Siri——苹果4S最有吸引力的卖点之一——在中国几乎无法使用，如果你有严重的中国口音的话，系统根本无法识别。最后，通过越狱和解说的保证是无效的，这对中国的苹果手机用户是件好事，他们很快会聚集到苹果官方商店门口的。

So Chinese users are cobbling together an iPhone experience from a variety of sources, and the overall experience is not very good. The comment Tim Cook made to analysts recently suggesting that Apple is focused on delivering a phone with “off-the-charts user experience that customers want to use every day of their lives” sounds like pure hyperbole from the Chinese perspective.

所以，对于中国用户来说，苹果手机是一种来自各种渠道的组装经验，而整体经验可能并不很好。Tim Cook向分析师表示苹果的设计是重视手机与用户之间“无缝体验，十分满意并且每天都想使用它们”。这话听起来以中国的视角来看纯粹是在吹牛逼。

A lot (if not most) of the new iPhone users in China are women, and many women I spoke to said they had acquired their phones as gifts from husbands or rich boyfriends.

在中国，很多（如果不是大部分）的苹果手机新用户都是女性，很多女性用户告诉我她们的手机都是丈夫或者男朋友作为礼物买给自己的

The iPhone may very well be the best smart phone on the planet when it’s living in its own ecosystem, but its functionality and user experience quickly dissipate when it leaves its natural environment. And then there’s the price — $700 in a country where managers typically make $1,000 a month.

苹果手机也许是地球上最好的智能手机，它有自己的生活环境，但是如果把它置于自然环境当中，它的功能或者所谓的用户体现马上就消失了。然后就是价格：当这个国家平均工资是每月1000美元的时候，它的价格却高达700美元。（这个不知道怎么搞了）

Who in their right mind would buy this phone? I asked 70 mid-level Chinese executives in a class I was teaching. None of the 45 men owned (or wanted to own) an iPhone. But ownership was almost universal among the 25 fashionable women.

正常人谁会买这样的手机？我问我正在上课的那个高级班的70后的高管。几乎很少有45岁以后的男人拥有（或者想要）苹果手机的。大部分苹果手机用户都是25岁左右的装逼女。

The stunning results of this impromptu survey prompted further investigation. Apparently, a lot if not most of the new iPhone users in China are women, and many women I spoke to said they had acquired their phones as gifts from husbands or rich boyfriends.

这种即兴的调查促进了我进一步的调查。很明显的结果是，中国很多（如果不是大部分）新的苹果手机用户是女性，而且大多数女性告诉我她们的手机都是丈夫或者男朋友买给自己当礼物的。

For a gift that exudes exclusivity, functionality is secondary; slow downloads, sparse content, and kludgy fixes may not be important. Maybe on the next quarterly call, Tim Cook will tell analysts that Apple is now focused on selling expensive fashion accessories.

作为礼物来说的独特，而功能明显是第二位的；蜗牛般的下载速度、寥寥无几的应用、复杂的修复过程都是不重要的。也许下个季度，Tim Cook将会告诉分析师们“苹果手机更加关注时尚昂贵的配件的销售”。

Recently, when shopping for a phone in the United States, I was tempted by the large, vivid screen of the newest Samsung device. However, I will probably purchase another iPhone instead, because I am locked into the ecosystem. My investment in music and applications, the seamless interface with my other Apple products, my familiarity with the system, all ensure that I will not leave. But in China, where users build their own structures (or opt to only superficially utilize the device), this lock-in does not happen.

最近在美国我想通过电话买台手机，我喜欢三星新出的手机：大屏、华丽的大屏！不过，我可能会买另一台苹果手机，因为我生活在一个封闭的生态环境当中。我在音乐和应用上花费了好多好多，与其他设备相比，我熟悉我的苹果产品。我怎么能离开呢？但是在中国，用户自己建立自己的生态系统（或者仅仅是利用苹果设备的外壳），封闭的情况从来都不会发生。

All of this is good news for competitors like Samsung, HTC, and Microsoft/Nokia. Chinese consumers are waiting for someone who understands their context to develop an ecosystem that makes smart phones easy to use. It may be that local players like ZTE and Huawei (whose very functional smart phones cost $150) are best positioned to get this system right.

这对如三星、HTC或者诺基亚来说是个好消息。中国的用户正在等待有人能真正了解自己的生活的环境，开发一款更易用的智能手机。本地的竞争者ZTE或者华为（功能完善的智能手机通常价格只有150美元左右）在功能定位的时候可能更有优势。

In any case, the winner certainly will not be a company that develops hardware, software, and an ecosystem from a U.S.-centric perspective. With its recent explosion of sales in China, Apple looks like the dominant force in the global smart-phone market. But that dominance could be very short-lived.

不管怎么说，这个研发硬件、软件和系统都以美国为中心而研发的公司也不会成为赢家的。短期内，苹果在中国的爆发，让苹果看起来是全球智能手机的主要力量。但是这种优势不会持续太长时间的。

Nathan T. Washburn is an assistant professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management.

This post first appeared on the Harvard Business Review Blog.

文章原载于哈佛商业评论