Chinese Buying Apples

The Chinese are buying Apples. Not the round green or red ones, but the thin silver ones. Yes - the first affordable Apple device for the Chinese masses has arrived: the iPad

These were the queues outside the huge, sleek, spartan Apple store in Beijing yesterday. Pitched cleverly (or coincidentally?) at about a months salary for a young Chinese White collar worker, the iPad has everything the urban image-concious Chinese wants;
- it is eye-catching, saying "look at me" (at least for a few weeks until everyone has one!)
- it is stylish (and so, by implication, are it's buyers)
- it is an overt display of international/Western consumption
- it is an exclusive brand....

....ahhhhh, here lies the quandry for Apple. How mass can a brand become before it ceases to be aspirational?

So far Apple have been able to avoid this dicotomy around the world due to the innovation factor. But in China perception is everything - and Apple runs a serious risk of loosing the elite image that it has crafted (fallen into?) by the previous "grey import only" availability and more recent high cost of it's now officially available products.

Louis Vuitton and other icon brands have been able to maintain their exclusivity by remaining priced for the few. Apple has taken a brave step into China's mass Market - only time will tell if it will come back to bite them.

Warwick or Wuxi...I'm not sure?

I have just enjoyed a brilliant week living on the Campus of Warwick University where I am studying for an MBA.

What struck me the most was the sheer number of Chinese students. With no exaggeration, it appears to be almost one in two of the early returnees for the new school year are Chinese. Even the Costcutter Supermarket has a Chinese food aisle to cater for the specialist needs of the new Warwick student demographic.

The funniest thing I have noticed, however, is that you never see just one Chinese student. They are always in pairs or groups, and these are always exclusively Chinese groups. Whilst I have some sympathy for these youngsters being far away from home and wanting to be close to their Middle Kingdom comrades, it remains a trait of the Chinese to not fully integrate into other societies.

This is a shame. The Chinese have so much to give, but also so much to learn from, the rest of the world. For a Chinese student to get the maximum benefit from their UK University education, they should avoid creating little "China Towns" on Campus, and should instead become a part of modern, multi-cutural, embracing Britain - at least for their two or three years.

We would all benefit from the increased interaction, and it would help ensure that China, and more importantly the Chinese, become better understood as they prepare to take centre stage.