Fatman

Raise your hand if 5G is offered in your area, Raise your hand if you are willing to carry a phone with an external 5G antennae. Raise your hand if you are willing to pay your telco a lot more money for 5G service, raise your hand if you know more than two people that could even tell you what 5G is.

The reality is, this is now a battle about 5G capable chips. Qualcomm has them now and is doing a full court press on building awareness and getting them to as many Android handset manufacturers that they can. Apple made a bet that Apple would have a viable alternative to Qualcomm’s 5G chip once there is infrastructure in place plus significant demand for the feature. So far it appears Apple’s prediction is in good shape - in the US at least. If they have a chip (either their own, from Intel, or from another company) by the Sept 2020 iPhone launch, they should be fine - since that will be when 5G will actually be usable/gaining momentum. And like many technologies, once Apple adopts the technology and educates the public, it will take off.

State subsidies is why Chinese handset manufacturers can sell similar (or better ) spec’d phones at one third the price. In a non-communist society, these companies would be bankrupt if they did not have that support. The China 2025 strategy is to own the world’s top technology and to never again depend on any other nation. They are using the same strategy in the data center, electric cars, telecom and airlines. They are willing to take massive losses in the short term to destroy the competition. There will be no other choices left (and innovation will die along with it). Manufacturing has already disappeared in many countries. Intellectual property has already been stolen - with no penalty. How can Apple or any other company or nation compete with that? The only edge Europe and America has over China is their ability to be truly creative and innovative, traits nearly impossible to steal or replicate - but is that enough?

Sorry, dumb question, but do they sound any better?

Deja Vu - A few years prior to the launch of Apple’s stores, I worked for Apple on a retail research project that analyzed the US retail channel (Circuit City, CompUSA, even department stores like Sears). The conclusion was if Apple cannot fully control the environment, they cannot create the customer experience they wanted. The store within a store concept helped but they needed more control - particularly Apple employed people to educate customers about their products and distinct advantages over the competition. Non-Apple owned and run stores did not work in the US and certainly will not work in India. The difference in this scenario is that the Indian government is keeping Apple from achieving the same goal. Like China, India is trying to limit the presence and power of foreign companies. Unfortunately for India, this is backfiring, since many of the best and brightest leave their country to live in more progressive countries like the US.

Apple will never be able to compete profitably against these state backed competitors. China plans to run Apple out of the market, the same way they hinder/ban Microsoft, Google and Facebook. The phones are all loaded with WeChat, so the government conveniently has tracking software within each handset to keep its citizens inline. What a dreadful society.