As big as the Chinese mobile phone market is, I’m not sure Apple should be pursing its current growth plan there. And last year Apple sold 23 million phones in China. The price of an Apple mobile in China is in the US$700 area. The price of a locally produced Android based phone US$100.
In my view Apple should attack the Chinese market with a local start-up. Don’t dumb down and feature down the 5Cs and 5Ss, to get the price margin better. Leave them as they are, priced as luxury phones for the up market consumer. Start a new company to fight more fairly the Chinese manufacturers Lenovo and Huawei and South Korean behemoth Samsung.
Keep your R&D eye on the ball in America, the ball being other internet connected devices. We forget that Apple, when not bothered by business blocking and tackling (and shareholding-focused share gain), has a history of inventing new categories. I fear that with all this energy focused on selling iPhones in China, Apple will regress in the ROW (rest of world) and start to slide.
Small share in PCs gave birth to the Apple of today. Stay the course. Innovate the form, the features and the software. Technological obesity in unbecoming. Especially for the svelte Apple. Peace.