Blip: Apple Taiwan opens first retail outfit
After nearly two and half years of planning a preparations, Apple Computer this past weekend opened its first Taiwan retail store in the capital city of Taipei.
The iPod maker's first large-scale retail location on the island is located in an area of Taipei famous for a large number of consumer electronic stores and has three floors, according to a report at DigiTimes.
The 4,270-square-foot store cost Apple a reported $4.6 million renovations and other fees to set up before it began serving customers on saturday.
Sony will reportedly dish out some competition early next year when it opens "a large retail shop" in a new SOGO department chain store around the vicinity of the new Apple store.
The Sony store will "provide open space for customers to experience using Sony products," DigiTimes cited sources as saying.
Apple's plan to expand its retail presence to Taiwan was reported by the Taiwan Daily News back in August of 2004.
According to that report, Apple's downtown Taipei location is likely to see company from two similar, but smaller franchised shops at a later date.
Update: Once again, DigiTimes' claims have been brought into question. It appears the retail store featured in the publication's report is owned by Apple reseller "Youth" and not Apple Computer.
The DigiTimes story has thus been deemed inaccurate.
The iPod maker's first large-scale retail location on the island is located in an area of Taipei famous for a large number of consumer electronic stores and has three floors, according to a report at DigiTimes.
The 4,270-square-foot store cost Apple a reported $4.6 million renovations and other fees to set up before it began serving customers on saturday.
Sony will reportedly dish out some competition early next year when it opens "a large retail shop" in a new SOGO department chain store around the vicinity of the new Apple store.
The Sony store will "provide open space for customers to experience using Sony products," DigiTimes cited sources as saying.
Apple's plan to expand its retail presence to Taiwan was reported by the Taiwan Daily News back in August of 2004.
According to that report, Apple's downtown Taipei location is likely to see company from two similar, but smaller franchised shops at a later date.
Update: Once again, DigiTimes' claims have been brought into question. It appears the retail store featured in the publication's report is owned by Apple reseller "Youth" and not Apple Computer.
The DigiTimes story has thus been deemed inaccurate.
Comments
Merry Christmas everyone!
Cubert
thatz yet another store operated by one of the many Apple authorized resellers in Taiwan. The operator is "Youth", not Apple Computer
100% inaccurate.
thatz yet another store operated by one of the many Apple authorized resellers in Taiwan. The operator is "Youth", not Apple Computer
Yeah, I was wondering was Apple going for the barbershop look.
Are those photos of old Macs and even Apple I/II's on the wall? I'd like to see the U.S. Apple store start to do this - a walk down Apple's memory lane!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Cubert
Will never happen.
I knew this couldn't be an official Apple store.
Steve would have a hissy fit if he saw that.
Sony will reportedly dish out some competition early next year when it opens "a large retail shop" in a new SOGO department chain store around the vicinity of the new Apple store.
SOGO is a big deparment store that is Japanese that has opened up in many Asian and South-East-Asian cities.
Yeah, I was wondering was Apple going for the barbershop look.
WTF.
http://www.apple.com.tw/events/2006/youth_open/
I can't read Chinese but the graphic at the top kind of gives it away.
DigiTimes ... your rumors suck and now your facts aren't straight!
I'd like to see a real Apple store in Taiwan someday because being the home of the laptop industry you'd expect it to be a pretty cut throat market and a real test for Apple's future in terms of switcher market share. This store seems ... cute ... but we won't be getting any insightful figures from here.
Shots from the Apple Taiwan page:
100% inaccurate.
thatz yet another store operated by one of the many Apple authorized resellers in Taiwan. The operator is "Youth", not Apple Computer
Three floors is pretty massive. While the operator is technically an Apple reseller, Apple Computer Taiwan probably has co-invested a significant portion to get the Store up and running. This was the case for Apple reseller in "Ikano Power Centre" in KL greater metro area, Malaysia.
The reseller manager was interviewed, and he obviously was coy about how much Apple Malaysia invested in his set up. It is one of, if not, the biggest (somewhat bigger than [MacAsia GreatEasternMall]) Apple reseller shop in Malaysia, mainly because there is a small upstairs "lounge" for meetings, training, demos, etc.
DigiTimes ... your rumors suck and now your facts aren't straight!
Heh, sure looks like that this past year. Though didn't they leak the MacBook 13" (at least the screen size part of it?)
I'd like to see a real Apple store in Taiwan someday because being the home of the laptop industry you'd expect it to be a pretty cut throat market and a real test for Apple's future in terms of switcher market share. This store seems ... cute ... but we won't be getting any insightful figures from here.
100% Agree. The challenges in Taiwan pretty much translate into the rest of the battles Apple faces in Asia, like Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, China, India.
100% Agree. The challenges in Taiwan pretty much translate into the rest of the battles Apple faces in Asia, like Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, China, India.
The day Apple takes on that ultimately vast market head on is the day we know they're finally going for global domination for real.
I always complain that Apple only really tries hardest in the American market, and even Europe gets a pretty weak focus especially outside of Britain. Even in the UK, no one here has seen the Mac v PC ads on TV. Why not? It seems stupid to bother with the stores if there's no support with marketing. iPods are one thing but what about the Mac?
I'd love to see Apple stores in every major city in every country with a decent computer market, with advertising pumped out to match, so that the Mac's GLOBAL market share can finally pull up out of obscurity and of course tens of millions of people be saved from Windows too! It's really about presence more than anything. In so many places, Macs just simply aren't ever considered. Mainland Europe is like that so much of the time ... why are Apple waiting and why are they in such denial when it comes to the Asian markets we all know will be essential in the years to come?
Hopefully the media strategy which the iPod, iTV, "iPhone" and the Mac all form pieces of will be Apple's really big move which will finally see them take on the world outside of the US and a handful of other smaller markets. Because if they don't, we all know that Dell and HP and Microsoft are more than willing: they're already there.
The secret of Youth's flagship store(1)
The secret of Youth's flagship store(2)
Nice to see Youth/Apple Store has all the facilities covered.
Taiwan's excise tax on computers made by Apple (often made in Taiwan, but then sent to Cali and then back again for sale) makes Mac's incredibly unafforadable in Taiwan's cut-throat market. I think it works out to be an added 15% to whatever Apple decides to put prices at for the Island.
What's the result ? A microscopic market share in computers and iPods that aren't nearly as popular as in the West (still doing well).
It's too obvious but wouldn't that be kind of redundant?
Heh.
What's the result ? A microscopic market share in computers and iPods that aren't nearly as popular as in the West (still doing well).
Hallelujah. Apple is just not ready to slice throats in the Asian market. So ironic because so much is made, designed, assembled in Asia... But it comes back to the consumer 10x the cost, so as to maintain Apple's "Western" profit margins which translate to very expensive Mac gear once currency conversions and average wages come into the picture.
Objectively though if I would look at Apple USA HQ and AAPL stock on USA Nasdaq, I can understand the focus on well-to-do, well-educated, somewhat "alternative/open-minded" Western (predominantly English-speaking) economies. For Asia, Apple has made a big push in Japan but has admitted it has not been as successful as it would have liked.
Overall though, Apple is improving its global reach and services. Particularly in Australia, there has been a lot of increased attention and support and accessibility to Apple products in Sydney and Melbourne in the past 5 years. A strong expansion from the creative elite (that service both the Australasian and Asian markets, in some cases US (eg. film/ advertising) markets) to more of consumer, prosumer, education, science and boutique-small-business markets.
Singapore and Taiwan are the best Asian markets for Apple to go at for the time being, in terms of very similar educated, English/Mandarin-speaking, high skill, high wage markets. But Taiwan clocks in at 22+ million people and Singapore only 4.5 million people, so again, a tiny, tiny sliver of Asia [I mean, 2 billion in India and China, but yeah, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Microsoft, are hovering like vultures over these and other emerging markets]. Now, not to mention USA's southern friends, Central and South America. Through California and Mexico, Spanish-speaking markets could be big and have more familiarity to Apple USA HQ as opposed to the exotic "Far East".
If you take into account original content produced in Mandarin, Cantonese (eg. pop songs) and Hindi (eg. Bollywood), these markets and their export to Chinese and Indian ethnic peoples in the "motherlands" or around the world (the "diaspora") we're talking some pretty damn big numbers here. Of course, the limitations are 1. Piracy and 2. Preference of lower-cost technology (eg. VideoCDs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_CD )
*God forbid though the English learnt is usually suburban Southern Californian and/or Hip-Hop and/or "Ethnic New York City" English