Fake Apple Stores Fall Out?
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14273444

First of all, of all Chinese knock-off stories since the dawn of mankind, this has to rank in the top 5, "staff believe they are working in a real Apple store."

Anyway, two of the DVD stores in my area were shuttered up this morning by the "authorities". I had also assumed that as long as the piper was paid, these guys could continue to ply the trade. I'm curious to hear if there is any connection between the DVD store closures and the Apple incident... Apple employs (directly and indirectly) an awful lot of Chinese people.

Maybe the relevant central authorities want to show some goodwill towards domestic and overseas journalists and other PR related people. Then it's probably back to the old situation if no important Chinese interests seem hurt.

The namesake restaurant of my FT handle was copied in Shanghai, I've even eaten there in 2004. ;) Quite interesting concept back them as half of the space was a sushi bar and the other occupied by the fake burger joint.

Even more interesting was that they were selling legitimate Apple products, unlike many other knock-off stores.

Downside: the smuggling of Apple goods from HK to the (admittedly much larger) Chinese market, resulting in a huge demand-supply difference down here!

I haven't figured out why Apple products cost so much more in China than in other markets. While import duties seem like an obvious culprit, tmk 95% of the assembly work takes place in China.

I am not part of the Apple cult myself, but I must tip my hat to them; at the Lowu border crossing, "Ipad", and "Iphone" are (prominently) listed ahead of "produce" on the list of restricted items... along with the threat of fines.

Foxconn with over a million employees in China
wields a mighty sword.

Terry Gou calls Hu on his direct line.
Shut down X,Y,Z. Done.

Also ,Steve heard his products were being
smuggled into China. Take care of that also. Done.

http://cnpic.chinareviewnews.com/upl.../100357963.jpg

Export tax rebates would be my guess.

Not unusual for the ex-China price for a Made in PRC item to be lower than the domestic price for this very reason.

Price higher due to lower revenue from app sales.

Also higher instances of jail breaking "越狱".

Didn't sound like from the press that the stores in Kunming were being shut down. And for every DVD store that is shut down, 3 more open up.

So sorry Terry, we could not close all the fake stores because as you know here in China we have very strict adherence to the law and we found not all
the stores violated Chinese law. Hope You Understand.

Terry: I understand one thing, I am moving my factories out of China to Brazil. ;)

Apple Corp can fight fire with fire if it chooses. A few Apple workers stoking the flames via Sina Weibo, QQ, etc. and "outing" the fake stores, insinuating the merchandise can't be guaranteed to be real, and pointing the public to their authorized Apple resellers....should work fairly well even without government assistance.

Like 500 Cybermart stores opening by Foxconn.^

I'm sure Apple can. Apple is now very, very powerful, and latest reports suggest that if the strong growth in China is sustained, Apple could be worth more than $1 trillion dollars. Not too shabby for a company on the verge of bankruptcy not too long ago!

Not too long ago...13 years.
That's like B.C. in China.

There are fake Apple stores everywhere. I haven't been to one computer market where I haven't seen the fake Apple store uniform.

Sure makes me feel old.