Dear Mac Observer,
I'm an American citizen although I have lived here in Beijing all my life. I'm 17. I go to the German School of Beijing and I have been a MacUser for 6 years now. For the last 2 years I've been watching Apple die and resurrect itself. And here is the scoop on Apple in China:
First of all shopping for Computers looks a bit different than in the US. Almost nobody buys name brand computers because they are more expensive. You can get them in almost all larger stores though. Close to everyone goes out and has "knowledgeable" people put together no-name PCs for usually under 6000¥(800US$). You find these people in dusty dirty shops in the computer/electronic streets in all larger cities. Some people buy from the new Chinese startup computer manufacturers like Legend Computer (they are really crappy).
Apple sales take place in dusty shops with lots of boxes of software you can't buy and open Macs littering the desks. Well, one of the shops now has an iMac to look at. You won't be able to get an iMac until April or later probably. Yea so that's the computer shopping experience. BTW Service is an unknown quality to Chinese.
Apple in China sells very few computers. Only DTP guys buy Macs and a few foreign Mac Users like me. Apple used to give lots of Macs to universities but all they do is sell them because they won't teach non standard computing!!!! That's terrible!
Now Apple had a very cool debut for the new Power Macintosh G3 on 2/2/99 (I was there)! Missed school though...
The event took place in one of the 5 star hotels on Beijing's main street. Everyone had to wait an hour longer before being able to get in. But after leaving your name card at the desk you were given a bag from an old Shanghai 97 Apple event with the G3's brochure and other useful Mac stuff in it. The stage was very similar to MacWorld San Francisco '99. Only that one side had lots of Pentium machines!!!! What a shock that was to me. The head of Apple China came on stage and talked about the past year and about iMac sales and lots of stuff. Then they had an Apple guy take the stage and slowly introduce the concept of the new Mac in four steps. Very similar to MacWorld. During this presentation they had an actor act out a 20 year old computer maniac buying Pentium machines because they were the fastest and getting more and more...and the image of HAL with an Einstein face in the red area talking to him and asking him about how bad he felt not buying the most beautiful and powerful computer. As an answer to that the actor would bash his Computers...the Pentium machines I was talking about...First he kicked one off the podium then he got a baseball bat and a chainsaw!! Was quite amusing. At the end they even got 5 people to go up on stage and go bash the Pentiums some more! The prices of the new G3s are the best prices ever for Mac Systems here but they are still about 300-600US$ more than in the US!
Ouch.
I must admit that was one of the coolest Mac introductions in China ever. So the new Macs will be available here by 3/1/99 (I'm getting one!!!) and they will sell but they are still only targeted to the DTP markets. But Vincent Tai (head of Apple China) mentioned that they would try to strongly push inroads into the Chinese consumer PC market with the launch of the iMac later this year. Maybe very late....
Well, I just hope the best for Apple here in China and really this is a large market they need to get in now! For the first time Chinese can afford computers and they are fond of buying them especially for their children.
Hope you enjoyed some imagery of Apple in China.
Best regards,
Forest Liu
"Think Different"