Where the old guard of Chinese contemporary art lived through the Cultural Revolution, the experiences of this new generation are more rooted in the everyday competition of urban life, and the rapid changes that China has gone through as they grew up. For one installation, the 30-year-old artist Li Liao laboured at a Foxconn factory for 45 days. With his wages he bought the very iPad Mini model he had been assembling. He displays it—alongside his work overalls, identity badges and contract—as “Consumption”. (The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos has posted an interview with Mr Li.)

But they are not entirely divorced from the past. In another work, Zhao Zhao, a 30-year-old former assistant of Ai Weiwei, cut cubes out of stone Buddha statues that had been destroyed by Red Guards, “to return them to their original state…in a repetition of history”. And that tank fashioned from leather cannot help but hold a particular charge in a post-1989 Chinese setting, even if the artist who conceived it, He Xiangyu, was only three years old when those tanks rolled into central Beijing.

Bao Dong, himself 33 and one of the exhibit’s two curators, said that “since 2000…China’s artists no longer only face an autocratic system but one of soft power. The market and capitalism [is] a soft, invisible cage.” It takes just as much courage to be original and daring in these conditions, he thinks, and such is the challenge for young artists who have “grown up in a society and culture beset by binaries, constantly toggling between extremes”.

Photographs and more information on the exhibition are available at the Ullens Center’s website.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: art, art exhibition, artists, Cultural Revolution, Evan Osnos, Foxconn, IPad, June 4th, Red Guards, Tiananmen Square
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The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing has an intriguing new take on China’s place in the debate over Apple, iPhones, and the people who make them. While Americans hash out the moral ups and downs of having our electronics produced by Chinese factory hands, a young performance artist named Li Liao decided to jump into the middle of it. He got an assembly-line job making iPads, and forty-five days later he used his wages to buy one. As an exhibit, he put the iPad on a pedestal, tacked up his uniform and badges, and framed his contract. The effect, on a white gallery wall, is a strangely addictive ready-made tableau about the intersection of money, aspiration, and technology. I watched two young men separately linger over it for very different reasons: one was a hip Chinese gallerygoer in chunky glasses and a camel-hair coat, taking it all in; the other was a gallery security guard in a borrowed suit and white gloves. He was studying the details of the contract.

Did the experience change your perceptions of Apple one way or the other?

I worked at Foxconn for forty-five days. Before that, I was already an Apple consumer. I don’t think this experience changed my perception of the products; it only made one thing clearer: many of the products in this world actually have nothing to do with the workers who made them. To most of the workers there, Apple was just a name, a logo.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, art exhibition, artists, Beijing, Evan Osnos, factories, factory workers, Foxconn, IPad, labor conditions, manufacturing, Shenzhen
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The case was opened two years ago, as the Shenzhen unit of Proview International Holdings Ltd, a Chinese manufacturer of computer monitors and other media devices, announced that Apple infringed upon its right by selling the popular tablets in China under the name of iPad. From The Wall Street Journal:

Apple's dispute was rooted in an agreement signed in 2009 to transfer the ownership of iPad trademarks in several countries, including China, from Proview and its affiliates to an Apple representative. The contract was signed by Proview's Taiwan subsidiary, but Proview's mainland China arm argued that it didn't sign the agreement and so could keep the China rights.

Xie Xianghui, an attorney for Proview Shenzhen, also told The Wall Street Journal that the company is currently in bankruptcy and has about $400 million in debt needed to settle with its creditors. China Hearsay's Stan Abrams speculates further:

All along, I was wondering if Proview’s creditors were going to force it to stand tall and try to get enough to pay off as much of their debt as possible. But apparently someone on that side blinked, realizing that Apple wasn’t going to get anywhere near that figure. That explains why settlement talks never went anywhere for so long.

So why did Proview agree to this now? Hard to say, but perhaps the court whispered into their ear and suggested it was time to get back to reality and agree on a much lower figure. We already know that the system here prefers settlements to high-profile cases like this.

Alternatively, Proview and/or its creditors had enough and said let’s take what we can get. Perhaps we’ll know the answer when more information comes out.

The lawsuit stirred up hot debate from both business analysts and Chinese internet users. Some criticized that Apple failed to “do their homework” — business contract and negotiation as well as Chinese law — in advance. Duncan Clark, chairman of consulting firm BDA China Ltd, told The Wall Street Journal that Apple’s sales grew ahead of the company's ability to keep up, and he suggests that it should have “senior management with a deep understanding of China”. Meanwhile, on Weibo, the Chinese twitter-like cyber platform, many people argued about “whether the settlement represented a victory for “thuggish” business tactics”. From China Real Time Report on WSJ:

“Intellectual property awareness is something to be supported, but Proview is definitely guilty of playing the thug,” wrote one Sina Weibo user posting under the handle Gossiper, repeating a common refrain. “Why does Apple’s logo have a bite missing?” asked Twitter user @luosheng. “Proview ate it.”

That’s not to say Proview didn’t have its supporters. “Why does everyone think Proview played the thug?” wrote one user, adding in English: “Business is business.” Wrote another: “The real thug is Apple, illegally using someone else’s trademark.”

Several others joked that Apple’s willingness to settle could set off a stampede to register potential Apple product names in China: “Soon iThis and iThat will all be nabbed and registered by Chinese people,” quipped a Sina user writing under the name Old Citizen Zhang. “Register a trademark, earn $60 million. So begins a trademark squatting craze,” added Ray’s Flying Room.

Even though the settlement fee is far less than what many expected, the lawsuit is still initiating a chain reaction on “biting the Apple”. This week, another Chinese company, Jiangsu Snow Leopard Household Chemical Co., Ltd, “accused Apple of using “Snow Leopard” as its trademark for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The case has been brought to law proceedings in Shanghai and the Chinese company is seeking 500,000 RMB in compensation, approximately 80600 US dollars. From Caijing:

The Chinese company has registered the trademark of “雪豹”(the Chinese word which means Snow Leopard) for electrical equipment production in 2000, according to chief executive Tong Yu.

Tong said the intangible asset was valued at 31 million yuan in 2001, and now at as much as 420 million yuan.

Apple had tried to apply for the registration of “SNOW LEOPARD” but rejected by Chinese trademark office, according to Tong. He believed the rejection was because his company had already registered the trademark.

Despite that, Apple still names its operating system in China “雪豹”,which Tong said, is “an obvious violation” of his ownership of the trademark.

Despite the messy lawsuits, Chinese Apple fans kept their enthusiasm and are looking forward to the about-to-launch “tablet”. As translated by China Real Time Report: “Now there’s only one thing everyone needs to do: Get ready to extract your kidney to buy an iPad 3,” goes a Weibo user.

Read more about Apple-related issues in China via CDT.

© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, business disputes, intellectual property rights, IPad, Proview, trademark protection
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“As Chinese we should unite together to defend the Diaoyu Islands and completely defend our homeland. Let us annihilate any attempt by the Japanese devils to come ashore our islands, throw them back to the Japanese isles, defend the Diaoyutai…” reads the intro to the game on iTunes.

For ZQGame, this isn’t their first stab at making a few kuai off of some of China’s citizens’ apparent zeal for conflict with its neighbors. On the company’s website are several promotions for online chapters of the company’s banner game set in China during the Second World War, including one called Nanjing Trial that puts gamers in Nanjing during the infamous Nanjing Massacre to fight off Japanese. The game’s tagline spells out the content clearly: “Return to Nanjing, pay back blood with blood.”

While the game’s theme may help it win a beachhead in the crowded App Store, Beijing has occasionally reined in anti-Japanese sentiment in the past, as Mozur points out, while Apple’s history of blocking politically-charged apps is also mixed.

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Post tags: Apple, diaoyu islands, IPad, Japan relations, Nanjing Massacre, video games
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A man outside Shanghai’s Middle Huaihai Road store attracted the attention of 10 police officers when he threatened to smash what he claimed was a defective 27-inch iMac that he had purchased, according to China Daily (which published the above photo):

“I told them I need a refund, and they owe Chinese users an apology,” the man, Zou Hongqing, told China Daily.

Zou said his computer developed dust spots because of defective design and should be recalled.

He said he arrived in Shanghai six days ago to sue Best Buy, an authorized distributor of Apple.

Shanghai’s Xuhui District Court will mediate between Zou and Best Buy on March 20.

Apple declined to comment on the incident, but had said earlier that the problem was caused by the dust in the air in China, rather than being a quality or design flaw, provoking outrage among users nationwide.

Apple’s third generation iPad also went on sale today in the U.S. and 9 other countries around the world, including Hong Kong, where the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Apple utilized an online lottery system to avoid the riot-like atmosphere that engulfed one of its Beijing stores when the iPhone 4S launched in January. The Globe and Mail posted a video report from Hong Kong, where it found no long queues outside Apple’s IFC store and paid a visit to a local reseller. The South China Morning post also reported that a secondary market opened outside the story almost immediately, despite Apple’s best efforts to prevent scalping:

Even so, one man was seen pocketing HK$13,100 for selling, to a trader, two 32GB iPads he had just bought for HK$4,688 each.

…

Some resellers were having difficulty getting buyers to part with their new iPads. A Guangzhou student offered RMB$15,000 to the very first iPad buyer, but was rejected. He was trying to buy it for an “important [person]”, but refused to say who he meant.

Murat Omurov, 26, said he travelled all the way from Kazakhstan to buy iPads. He was offered HK$5,000 to buyers but, by late morning, had found no one willing to sell.

Bloomberg reports that hopeful buyers in mainland China will have to wait to buy the new iPad, however, despite the irony that millions of the devices are already in China.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, Hong Kong, IPad, scalpers, Shanghai
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Some former Apple executives say there is an unresolved tension within the company: executives want to improve conditions within factories, but that dedication falters when it conflicts with crucial supplier relationships or the fast delivery of new products. On Tuesday, Apple reported one of the most profitable quarters of any corporation in history, at $13.06 billion, on $46.3 billion in sales. Its sales would have been even higher, executives said, if overseas factories had been able to produce more.

Executives at other corporations report similar internal pressures. This system may not be pretty, they argue, but a radical overhaul would slow innovation. Customers want amazing new electronics delivered every year.

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said one former Apple executive who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

“If half of iPhones were malfunctioning, do you think Apple would let it go on for four years?” the executive asked.

The New York Times also partnered with China’s Caixin to publish the article in Chinese, and has collected numerous comments about the article from Chinese netizens:

Below are some of the hundreds of comments about the Chinese article that were posted on Caixin’s Web site and on Weibo.com, a Chinese microblogging Web site, and other Chinese social media platforms. These comments were collected and translated by Wang Qidi and Cathy Cheng.

I read this story and I’m saddened. It’s not only Apple that should be blamed, but also the system that tolerates its existence. Made-in-China should not be synonymous with the blood and sacrifice of young lives. — Evita

When local governments are trying to attract new investments to their regions, they always emphasize the low-cost labor in their areas. How pathetic! — Jiangsu

By the way, construction workers and farmers are also living a harsh life in China, shall we also boycott housing and grains? — Zhou Zhimei

Focus has recently shifted to the human costs of Apple’s supply chain, including conditions at the much-maligned Foxconn factories in southern China, after Apple also came under fire in 2011 as concerns grew over the environmental costs of its products. The tech giant released a list of its major suppliers earlier this month as part of a Supplier Responsibility Progress Report on its web site.

Apple may now have another China problem on its hands, according to The Financial Times – How to meet the staggering demand for its products by consumers in China, where a frenzy outside one of its Beijing stores earlier this month prompted the suspension of all iPhone models:

What should it have done? Theoretically, it could have raised prices – introducing a premium for day-one sales. But this could have courted a different kind of public relations disaster, with Chinese customers complaining they were being ripped off for buying what is already a high-priced product.

Apple should probably have concentrated more stock in the Beijing and Shanghai flagship stores, given their importance in China – and within Apple. The customers would have waited patiently if they had been confident of buying phones – as they have all over the world. There have been stories of scalpers causing trouble in Apple queues, but if the company can manage crowds in other countries, why not China?

These are the customers that Apple needs to keep happy – not just because they are loyal but because they are concentrated at two of the highest-profile outlets on the globe. If necessary, the company should have raided the online sales depots – and transferred stock. The online customers would have been unhappy with delays and even cancellations, but their complaints could be more easily managed. Nor have they queued up overnight in the cold. In the worst case, where would they have thrown their eggs?

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, Foxconn, IPad, iPhone, microblogs, online public opinion, sina weibo, supply chain, working conditions
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Hu Shuli, a prominent Chinese editor who co-founded the independent news organization, said the company on Friday will start distributing English-language Caixin Weekly in Hong Kong through subscriptions and on newsstands. Caixin also is talking to Hong Kong publisher SCMP Group Ltd. about distributing the magazine with weekend editions of the South China Morning Post, although the companies said no deal has been finalized.

Caixin, which means finance news, also will start an English iPad app “in a few weeks” to target readers in the Americas and Europe, Ms. Hu said in an interview ….

Ms. Hu started Caixin Media in late 2009 after splitting with the publishers of her former magazine, Caijing. In more than a decade editing that publication, she gained a reputation as one of China’s most aggressive muckrakers and was credited for bringing Caijing to national and international prominence with articles about corruption and a government cover-up of the SARS pandemic in 2003.

Flagship Caixin Century has a circulation of 220,000, primarily in China. In its 17-month run so far, the Chinese-language magazine has run articles about the forced demolition of Chinese villages for government projects and about alleged abuses of monopoly power by state-owned Chinese companies. The Wall Street Journal Asia occasionally publishes articles from Caixin.

See also: Caixin’s English-language website and Caixin articles previously featured on CDT.

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Post tags: Caijing, forced demolitions, Hong Kong, Hu Shuli, IPad, monopoly, news media, SARS, South China Morning Post
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A 17-year-old student in Anhui Province sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yuan only to buy an iPad 2. Now, with his health getting worse, the boy is feeling regret but it is too late, the Global Times reported today.

“I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it,” said the boy surnamed Zheng in Huaishan City. “A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan.”

On April 28 Zheng went to Chenzhou City in neighboring Hunan Province for the kidney removal surgery arranged by the broker. His parents knew nothing about it, Zheng said. He was paid 22,000 yuan after his right kidney was taken out at the Chenzhou No. 198 Hospital.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that production has resumed at workshops run by iPad manufacturer Foxconn, following a temporary closure in the wake of a fatal explosion at the plant.

In a written statement Thursday, Hon Hai spokesman Louis Woo said the company has made a number of improvements in its workshops because the blast “was likely due to an explosion of aluminum dust in a ventilation duct.” The blast at a Hon Hai facility in Chengdu, China, last month killed three people and injured 15.

Mr. Woo said the workshop changes, which follow a “detailed and thorough review of all related safety policies and procedures,” include improved ventilation and an overhaul of dust-disposal practices ….

Hon Hai, which makes Apple iPads and other products and is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer by revenue, had closed the workshops amid the investigation into the blast. The workshops handle polishing for electronic parts and products.

Because of Hon Hai’s size, some analysts had worried about what impact the closures might have on the global electronics-supply chain for items such as cellphones, tablet devices and videogame consoles. In addition to Apple, Hon Hai, which reported more than $80 billion in revenue last year, also makes products for companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and Nintendo Co., analysts said.

The real impact of the closure on supply chains remains unclear, as MacStories reports:

Closing the factory led several analysts to believe the worldwide supply chain could suffer a major impact, with Apple losing 500,000 iPad units. Others suggested Foxconn’s Shenzen factory would pick up all missed production from Chengdu, though it wasn’t clear whether Foxconn shifted the production of some components and devices to other facilities or not. The Chendgu plant was said to account for 30% of all iPad production, though as reported by All Things Digital Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White believes production issues may be related to overall supply chain shortages, rather than damages from the explosion itself:

Therefore, the explosion in Chengdu may result in more of an equilibrium situation with certain component vendors, rather than a shortage situation. Netting this all out, we believe the production of iPad 2 will be supply constrained during the June quarter; however, we are not prepared to place the bulk of the blame on the Chengdu operation.

China Real Time Report quoted Acer President Jim Wong on the risk of long-term supply chain disruption by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami:

This “really is a big disaster because it’s after the financial crisis,” Mr. Wong said in an interview on Wednesday. Companies used to be “so good at risk management,” having multiple factories around the world to distribute risk, but after financial crisis “a lot of people started downsizing.”

Mr. Wong did not name the suppliers that have been sources of concern, but said Acer was surprised to find that one company which had a good reputation in risk management reported having only one factory manufacturing one of its components because the financial crisis forced it to close its other facilities.

For the moment, Mr. Wong said component supplies are sufficient because companies often store several weeks of extra inventory. But inventory for certain components or materials, including resin and touch sensors, could run out in July, he said, at which point problems may arise. “To be honest, everybody is so cautious now,” he said. “Entering July, we will know better” because after June, Acer and other companies will be counting “on real output from factories.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Acer, Anhui, Apple, Chengdu, Chenzhou, Foxconn, Hunan, industrial accidents, IPad, manufacturing, organ trade, Shenzhen
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Flipboard is a “personalized, social magazine” app for iPad which, by aggregating content from Twitter and Facebook, has given users in China indirect access to these blocked services. Techcrunch, however, reports that this loophole has now been closed:

As of today certain aspects of the Flipboard experience have been blocked for Chinese users, at the very least access to Facebook and Twitter according to Flipboard CEO Mike McCue. While direct access to Facebook and Twitter is routinely blocked in China, the Flipboard app talked to its own US-based servers, which in turn talked to Twitter and Facebook so this block is particularly interesting.

“Lots of folks in China had been using us happily until now,” McCue said, “Guess we had unwittingly poked a hole in their wall which has now been shut down… Presumably unless we block Facebook and Twitter ourselves in China.” The iPad app is still available in the Chinese app store ….

“I can now confirm Flipboard itself is being blocked. All services (not just Facebook and Twitter) no longer work. [Users] used to be able to login to Facebook and Twitter using VPN. Now with our servers blocked, even if you had successfully logged in, we can’t show data. Also, users who had setup Flipboard from outside china used to be able to use Facebook and Twitter when within china. That is no longer the case.”

Global Voices Advocacy, meanwhile, describes new measures to discourage use of corporate and academic computers to access blocked sites overseas:

A number of Chinese netizens report that since May 6 2011 visiting overseas website via China Telecom and China Unicom has become highly unstable. This time the disruption mainly affected corporate connections, including university, while ADSL connection at home performs normally.

Some technology bloggers point out that the Great Fire Wall is now able to monitor data flow of local IP and impose restriction when it detect large amount of access to certain overseas IP addresses. Some are worried that the mechanism may result in a de facto white listing of overseas websites.

Prominent Technology blogger William Long points out that the blocking this time is targeted at corporate user in order to stop people from visiting overseas website via corporate network and connection.

A notice from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has confirmed netizens’ speculation:

CAS IHEP: Our faculty’s access to overseas websites have been disrupted in the past few days. Upon investigation, the reason is because some users have used circumvention tools to get access to illegal content, hence the public security bureau has black-listed our faculty’s IP. Here I remind everyone to follow the rule when using Internet, don’t use illegal means to get access to illegal information!

See also: “Shenanigans” as China Restricts VPN and Other Connections on CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, Facebook, Great Firewall, Internet censorship, IPad, Twitter, VPN
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An ugly scene was depicted Saturday at Apple’s flagship store in Beijing, and the specific cause of the violence remains shrouded in some degree of mystery. “Penn-Olson: The Asian Tech Catalog” has published a brief account of the scuffle that resulted in shattered glass and at least one beaten, bloodied Apple customer.

According to the report, the incident “left one man – allegedly – beaten by a ‘foreign Apple employee,’ three other people injured, and a few panes of glass shattered.” As we know, the iPad 2 went on sale at China’s four Apple stores as recently as Friday. Although it isn’t yet clear if the tussle was related to the new Apple product in some fashion, the long lines and swelling, frustrated crowds may have played a role in pushing the “Apple employee” in question over the edge.

Other outlets are reporting that the fight was between a scalper and an Apple employee, ultimately resulted in four having to go to the hospital. From Apple Insider:

Chinese Mac site MacX (via Google Translate) reports that the Beijing Sanlitun Apple Store temporarily closed for business on Saturday afternoon after an altercation allegedly broke out between scalpers and an Apple Store employee, though the specific details of the incident remain unclear.

The apparent facts of the incident are that four people were injured and taken to the hospital, one of the glass doors for the Apple Store was broken and the store was closed for a time for cleanup and a subsequent police investigation.
The report alleges that a near “riot” erupted after retail staff attempted to close the store and usher customers out the back door. A separate unconfirmed report claims that a fight broke out between “a foreigner and a Chinese man,” though MacX notes that the information “is difficult to distinguish between true or false.”

The May 6 release of the IPad2 in China has caused a buying frenzy. An estimated 1000 were waiting in line as the Apple store opened and the  IPad2 sold out in just four hours. From CNET:

The iPad 2 debuted in China this morning to what is fast becoming a standard reception: massive lines and quick stock-outs.

That the device had been unofficially available on the market–through sellers who brought it into the country after buying the device overseas–did little to quell demand, which drove hundreds of hopeful buyers to queue overnight outside Apple’s four stores in Beijing and Shanghai. “When we arrived here at around 4 a.m., there were already more than 500 people waiting,” an Apple security guard at the company’s downtown Beijing store told Xinhua. “The crowd rose to some 1,000 people when the store opened.”

Sales began promptly at 8 a.m., the first retail stock-out was reported about four hours later, and by Friday afternoon the iPad shipping estimates at Apple’s Chinese Online Store had gone from “1-2 weeks” to “No Supply.”

© cdtstaff for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, IPad
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The new app, from the State Council Information Office, is free on Apple’s App Store and simple to use. It includes videos of press conferences and full, downloadable copies of the State Council’s white papers on subjects like national defense, Internet development, ethnic issues and human rights in Chinese and English from 2005 to 2010.

The SCIO app isn’t likely to top rival the “Angry Birds” games and “Atari’s Greatest Hits” among the most popular apps any time soon. User reviews on the App Store were, on balance, running negative as of Wednesday afternoon, with 15 of 28 giving the app only one star, and 11 giving it the full five stars. In the Chinese App store, reviews were also mixed. Some users said it was useful and “good for understanding China,” encouraging other government organs to do the same. But one user criticized it as a misuse of public money, while another wrote “How could a thing full of lies be put on the shelf?”

The move is the latest in the Chinese government’s recent efforts to improve its image abroad, an effort that has entailed billions of dollars of investment in state media and propaganda outlets. The SCIO is largely responsible for getting the government’s message out, through white papers and press conferences, as well being one of the regulators of the media in China. A notice on its website said the app is meant “to increase the coverage and influence” of those efforts and “to introduce China to the world in a better way and to enhance the international image of China.”

According to recent instructions issued by the SCIO to the media, all websites were instructed “to post in a prominent position” news about the new iPhone app.

© victoriawu for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: IPad, state council's information office
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Revenue in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the first quarter quadrupled to $2.6 billion from a year earlier, [COO, Tim] Cook said during a Jan. 18 earnings call. Those regions will contribute “well over half” and possibly as much as 100 percent of Apple’s total earnings growth in the next two years, Morgan Stanley estimates.

“We put enormous energy into China, and the results of that have been absolutely staggering,” said Cook, who will handle the company’s day-to-day operations while Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs takes medical leave ….

The four Apple stores in China generate, on average, the highest traffic and highest revenue of any company stores in the world, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said on the call.

As well as these four locations, Apple launched an online store and a simplified-Chinese version of the App Store for iPhone and iPad last October. The San Francisco Chronicle article mentions that the 3G iPad has now been approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, barely ahead of the expected announcement of a second-generation device.

Not everything in China has gone Apple’s way. A spate of suicides occurred at “iPod City”, the enormous Foxconn plant which manufactures many of Apple’s (and other companies’) products. More recently, a coalition of Chinese environmental groups criticised Apple for the lack of transparency surrounding its supply chain, saying that this prevents independent verification of the company’s own audits (PDF).

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, apple store, IPad, iPhone, Lenovo, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
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Apple stores in Beijing and Shanghai as well as authorised retailers around the country began offering the Wi-Fi model of the touchscreen device, millions of which have already been sold in the United States and a dozen other nations.

Analysts predicted strong demand for the iPad despite a paucity of Chinese content and the country’s huge unofficial market for Apple products, which are slipped in from Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States and resold.

At the US tech giant’s Beijing store, Han Ziwen, 35, said he had camped out for 60 hours to ensure he was first in line when the flagship outlet’s doors opened at 8:00 am.

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “I buy iPad No. 1″, the bookstore owner held two of the sleek computers above his head in a victory sign as hundreds of people standing in the driving rain cheered.

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Post tags: Apple, IPad
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Hard-working Chinese bootleggers are rushing to fill a vacuum that won’t last for long, created by unexpectedly strong demand for the iPad in its first weeks on the market.

The 10-inch entertainment device, on which one can read books, play music and videos and surf the Internet, sold more than 500,000 in its first week alone, and continued strong U.S. demand has led Apple to delay the product’s international launch to the end of April.

Chinese counterfeiters have rushed to fill the iPad gap.

Taobao, China’s largest online marketplace, contains hundreds of listings for the coveted product, many real but some dubiously labeled as “China goods”, with claims to have even better features than the real deal.

Like the models in the Shenzhen market, these fake iPads also retail for around 2800 yuan each, compared with 4,000-6,000 yuan for those marketed as real.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, IPad, piracy
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