The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Fake Apple Store in China even fools staff Posted: 21 Jul 2011 04:59 AM PDT  File photo shows customers and visitors using computers at a genuine Apple Store in Boston, July 19, 2010. An American blogger claims he stumbled on a fake Apple Store in Kunming, China. – Reuters pic The store in Kunming was stumbled upon by a 27-year-old American blogger living in the city, the capital of China's mountainous southwestern Yunnan province. Complete with the white Apple logo, wooden tables and cheery staff claiming they work for the iPhone maker, the store looks every bit like Apple Stores found all over the world, according to the blogger, who goes by the name "BirdAbroad". But Apple has no stores in Kunming and only 13 authorized resellers in the city, who are not allowed to call themselves Apple Stores or claim to work for Apple. "This was a total Apple store rip-off. A beautiful rip-off – a brilliant one – the best rip-off store we had ever seen," the anonymous blogger posted yesterday. "Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple." It was unclear whether the store was selling fake or genuine Apple products – there are countless unauthorised resellers of Apple and other brands' electronic products throughout the country who sell the real thing but obtain their goods by buying them overseas and smuggling them into the country to skip tax. The store had sections devoted to different Apple products, similar to real Apple stores, and large posters advertising the iPhone 4 and MacBook Pro, according to photos on the blog. (http://birdabroad.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/are-you-listening-steve-jobs/) Apple declined to comment. The Cupertino, California-based firm reported forecast-smashing results on Tuesday, helped by massive growth in Asia, and China in particular. Apple, which was slow to establish its brand in China, currently has four retail outlets in Beijing and Shanghai. The firm plans another two more this year, including one in Shanghai and another in Hong Kong. But the immense popularity of Apple's iPads, iPhones and Macbook computers has spurred a bumper crop of resellers with dubious credentials. At one unauthorized Apple reseller in Shanghai visited today, the shop was decorated in much the same way as Apple stores, with wooden tables and chairs with iPads laid out for customers to try out. The shop was not contained on a list of authorized Apple resellers in Shanghai. (http://www.apple.com.cn/reseller/index.php) But the proprietors fell short on the attention to detail displayed by their counterparts in Kunming. For one, the store also sold some other products, like chocolate jigsaw puzzle. – Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Mercedes’ tiny Smart takes on big boys in China Posted: 21 Jul 2011 01:48 AM PDT  Klaus Maier adjusts his lanky frame in a bright Smart. — Reuters pic But it's not Mercedes' SLK sports car or top-end S-class that strikes her fancy. Like a fast-growing number of affluent, hip Chinese, Dong is enamoured with Daimler's other brand, Smart, the tiny but nimble, colourful two-seater that looks almost more toy than transport. "When I test drove the Smart, I loved it right away and made up my mind. It's special," said Dong, who goes by the English name of Kathy. "Not many people drive this kind of car, so it gets noticed. People don't know much about the car and ask me about it, and I quite like that too."  Klaus Maier: "Positively surprised" Kobe Bryant could actually get in. — Reuters pic The division tallied 5,440 sales in China in the first half of this year, surpassing its entire 2010 total, and challenging sales in the United States, which have stalled after a promising start. That makes China, now the world's biggest auto market, a must-win play for Smart, which currently counts Germany and Italy as its biggest markets. To be sure, the vast bulk of Daimler's sales in China are luxury Mercedes sedans with the distinctive three-point star. Mercedes sales have skyrocketed more than eightfold in the past five years to more than 147,000 units in 2010, mostly thanks to increasingly wealthy Chinese consumers who prize the big luxury cars for which Mercedes is best known. But small, quirky models such as BMW's Mini and Volkswagen's Beetle have been gaining ground, winning over well-heeled young professionals and entrepreneurs in big cities. Annual sales in China of the Beetle jumped tenfold from 2005 to 10,000 units in 2010. Deliveries of Minis came to 9,800 units, up from fewer than 500 in 2005, according to J.D. Power and Associates. "These kinds of vehicles are typically targeted at people who want to distinguish themselves from mainstream car buyers," said Klaus Paur, managing director for Greater China at industry consultancy Synovate Motoresearch. "They want to reflect their personality and make a statement to others: 'Look at me, I am modern, dynamic and trendsetting'." With its diminutive size and plastic exterior, Smart has to overcome worries over safety, especially in wild Chinese traffic. The thought of a tiny car that looks like a small piece of candy crashing head-on with a giant, meandering cargo truck on China's rough-and-tumble highways is enough to make one shudder. "I'm not worried — I saw they've done lots of tests," said Dong, albeit a bit vaguely. Roger Ruan, a 28-year-old who runs his own business in Nanjin, had a more convincing experience. He wanted to buy a Smart for his wife but worried about the safety of the two-seater. Then he saw a news report about a highway pileup in which a Smart had slammed into a big truck in front of it, and was then rammed by a large car in the rear. "The Smart car driver was a pregnant woman," he said. "I was stunned; she wasn't hurt at all." He went to a dealer and ordered a white Smart immediately. The Smart ForTwo, the smallest car for sale in the US market that year, received the top rating of "good" by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for front and side crash protection for 2008-10. In an IIHS frontal crash test with another vehicle in 2009, however, the Smart fared poorly. The European New Car Assessment Programme, meanwhile, gave Smart a four-star rating out of five. Kobe Bryant factor
Smart is cute, no question about that. But the two-seater, more than one metre shorter than a Mini and almost 152cm shorter than a Beetle, has little cargo space, cannot go particularly fast, and is not geared towards distance driving. "When we made this decision, we were not 100 per cent sure whether this will work," Mercedes-Benz China president and CEO Klaus Maier said. And initial market reception was far from positive. Smart sold 1,800 units in 2009 — a fraction of the 12,300 flagship Mercedes S-class models delivered in the same period. But sales took off after Maier got US basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, a household name in China, to do a commercial fitting his 198-cm frame into a Smart. "We were not so sure he would really fit into the car, but we were positively surprised," chuckled Maier. The success of the campaign featuring "Kebi", as Bryant is known in China, is part of what's fuelling Smart's surge in the world's most populous country. A low sticker price, high fuel economy, and small parking profile also add to the allure. At 115,000-225,000 yuan (about RM53,300-RM104,300), Smart is a cheaper alternative to a Mini or Beetle, which go for as much as 410,000 yuan and 300,000 yuan respectively. Shanghai resident Afei Yan and his wife only drive their Buick Regal to important business meetings after the couple bought two Smart cars last month. "The beauty of Smart is that it's so small, but you don't feel that way once you get in," said Yan, a 30-year-old entrepreneur who runs his own machinery manufacturing business. "Also, for one Mini we can get two Smarts. "My wife and I now drive our Smart every day to work, to visit friends and even for shopping trips to Carrefour over the weekends. It saves us a lot of trouble finding a parking place and our fuel bill is also getting a lot smaller." Their monthly fuel cost for the Smart is about 1,500 yuan a month now, half of the amount when Yan drove the Buick. Maier wants to make the two-seater available in up to 60 Chinese cities within 24 months, including third-tier cities, unlikely locations for showrooms when he brought the car to China two years ago. "But third-tier cities in China are 2.5 million people, quite large for Europe," Maier notes. At present Smart has 32 sales outlets in 25 cities in China. Maier expects China will be one of the top global markets for Smart down the road — along with Germany and Italy — where 16,000 and 14,000 of the micro cars were sold, respectively, in the first half. "I could imagine in four or five years we will come up to a level like Germany and Italy," he said. — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
When Daimler brought the Smart to China in April 2009, it was no sure bet. The global vehicle industry was sputtering amid a steep downturn and the Chinese government had to resort to aggressive stimulus measures to keep its motor manufacturers afloat.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Features To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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