Developing A Global Vision

Apple To The Universe
( Global marketing is more than just making business abroad, it involves an understanding of the traditions, language, customs, and needs of the different types of markets that you can be dealing with in foreign countries. It also involves a large understanding of the environmental factors in that country such as culture,economic and technological development, political structure and actions, demographics, and natural resources that may affect the implementation of the marketing mix.)

   A thousand years from now Apple inc may go universal; for now they are only global. With more than 300 retail stores world wide they are very much on their way to becoming one of the biggest multinational companies in history. With 28 stores in the UK, 28 in Canada, 231 in the U.S, and several other store in 8 other countries it is irrelevant to say that Apple has expanded their markets well beyond the United states borders. One of the newest markets Apple is trying to develop is the Chinese, they just opened 2 new stores on Saturday Sept. 25, 2010 and plan to open a total of 25 stores by the end of 2012.

      According to the C.I.A there are more than 1.3 billion (estimate)people in China as of July 2010, and the world population in around 6.7 billion, that means that 20% of the world's population is Chinese; that's 1 out of every 5.

Qianman Street Store, in Beijing China.

      Such a big market is the perfect a attraction factor for any business going global, Apple's 2 new stores to make a total of 4 are aiming to infiltrate the market share in China. The Chinese population is moving steady towards becoming urban community and thus forming cities of immense population such as Beijing and Hong Kong. The middle class is also growing as well due to all the companies that have moved their production factories to China. The population in the large cities of China is estimated to be from 6 to 15 million making these fast growing cities attractive markets for the taking.
   There are very little malls in China and there for Apple is forced to open street level stores, their real state team helps them find the best fit location for a now store. Never the less some of China cities are very traditional so Apple has to keep a good look out for the cultural diversity between each target market.
    The iPhone 4 was released China, on Sept 25th on the opening of the 2 new retail stores, it was priced at 4,999 yuans- around $747 for the 16GB and 5,999 yuans-around $896. With the average income of a middle class person per year being  around $2,000 the price seems a bit too high for high demand, but than again Apple has never been the low cost competitor.

Salitun Village store in Beijing

     Apple has amazing store all over the world, you can't expect less from the new stores in china, the Hong Kong plaza store is an amazing 40ft high glass cylinder. As an Apple customer I think that Apple sells good products but the prices in countries like Mexico are too expensive to be available for the common middle class market as they are in America and other developed countries. An 8GB iPhone 4 is 9,799 pesos; that's almost a whole weeks salary for any average middle class family in Mexico. But than again product differentiation is what drives people to pay such high prices and Apple has set their standards high.

Hong Kong Plaza reatail

     You can also buy Apple products virtually any where in the world through apple.com official Apple web page for China is http://www.apple.com.cn, (for Mexico just change the cn to mx.) here you can see the prices for all of the Apple products available in China and Mexico.