Paris/Palo Alto, Calif. — Apple's stock may be
sliding as investors fret about growing competition, but store visits
and interviews with smartphone and tablet shoppers in 10 cities around
the world suggest consumers share little of that negativity.
With tablets and other mobile devices the gadgets of choice this
holiday season, Reuters canvassed over 70 shoppers and store employees
across Sydney, Seattle, Palo Alto, Shanghai, Bangalore, Singapore,
Paris, London, Mexico City and Boston for insight into what does and
doesn't beckon.
Apple stores and electronics
retailers were bustling last week, in contrast to the Microsoft pop-up
stores in the United States promoting Windows 8 and Surface tablets,
which were far less crowded.
Samsung appeared to
be marketing aggressively, blanketing stores across major cities with
signs for its Galaxy products and other devices, and large displays in
many stores. Customers noticed, but only in Singapore and Bangalore did
most of those spoken to by Reuters see it as a top choice.
Nokia, meanwhile, seems to have all but vanished from the front lines
of the retail wars. Amazon's Kindle devices were also little in
evidence, though that likely reflects its greater online sales focus.
Apple and its rivals are duking it out in displays, buying advertising
and mobilizing armies of employees to try to win over the swarm of
shoppers who will hit malls across the globe in coming weeks.
Loyalty to Apple's compelling orchard of products seemed to be a first
line of defense for the Cupertino, California, company as shoppers in
Europe, Asia and the United States weighed the pros and cons of
switching to rival offerings.
Customers cited
existing iTunes music and video libraries plus the traditional Apple
virtues of simplicity and ease of use as reasons to stick with the
iPhone and the iPad.
"I just taught my Persian
grandmother how to use her new iPhone. She's 77 and speaks no English,"
said Soheil Arzang, a 27-year-old law student in Palo Alto, California.
"With a Windows PC there are so many buttons, it's confusing. I
converted my parents officially to Apple iPhones, Macs and iPads."
His father "used to go to Best Buy, but now he just says ‘let's go to
the Apple store,'" Arzang said at a store near company headquarters.
In Paris, Max Cevenne, a 62-year-old photographer whose iPad was
recently stolen, grilled a sales clerk about how Samsung's 10-inch
Galaxy tablet would work with his PC at home.
"The Samsung appeals to me because it has an SD (digital memory) card
and is more flexible in terms of software and hardware you can use with
it," he said at the FNAC electronics store near St. Lazare train
station. "But I may end up going back to the iPad since I already use
other Apple products, and it might be simpler."
Across the English Channel at a John Lewis department store in London,
Joanna Sargent cast her eye over Amazon's Kindle Fire, but since she's
bought three iPad Minis for her sons, she said she would probably stay
with what's familiar.
"I looked at going for
another tablet, but although they are cheaper, you have to re-buy
everything," she said. "We'd have to buy all the music again, and you
have to take that into account."
Train engineer John Owen from Didcot, Oxfordshire, echoed: "Apple's got me in now."
What's hot, and what's not
Just three years after their inception, tablet computers are the
indispensable item. In a US Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters
from December 8 to December 11, one in three of 1,330 people surveyed
were thinking of buying one of the slim gadgets.
Of those predisposed, 42 percent were leaning toward an iPad or iPad
Mini, 16 percent were considering the Kindle Fire, and 14 percent a
Samsung Galaxy. A mere 4 percent of respondents were drawn to
Microsoft's Surface.
Apple has led the mobile
industry since it launched its first iPhone in 2007 and then the iPad in
2010. But rivals including Samsung, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are
making gradual inroads. IPads accounted for 54 percent of the tablet
market this year but are expected to dip to 50 percent by 2016 as
competing tablets gain ground, according to market research firm IDC.
Apple has lost a quarter of its value since September as fears grow about its ability to fend off challengers.
Samsung in particular appears to have launched a global marketing blitz at stores and malls around the world.
In Mexico City, its logo was plastered on signs on roads and outside
retailers such as Sanborns and Iusacell. Despite that high visibility,
an employee at one shop said he's selling about 15 iPads a week.
"The iPad mini is selling out as soon as we receive the shipments. Last
week we got 42 and this week 32, and they sold almost immediately. ... A
lot of people buy them as gifts," he said.
There are 88.5 million mobile phone users in Mexico, out of which just
15 million have smartphones, according to industry data, an example of
the sizeable potential market that Apple, Samsung and others are
fighting for.
In India, where mobile phone sales
grew at a 47 percent clip in the third quarter, according to Gartner
research, iPhones are still the gold standard, and many models were sold
out.
But Androids are steadily attracting
consumers. In tech-savvy Bangalore, the affordable smartphones are
pervasive, replacing many of the Nokia feature phones popular in the
past.
IPhones and iPads are too expensive for
many Indians, but that didn't discourage a steady stream of keen window
shoppers at an electronics market plastered with Samsung advertising.
"You have to pay the Apple premium, but when you consider the
ease-of-use and the whole Apple ecosystem, it's well worth the money,"
said 29-year-old Karthik Venkataraman.
That same stickiness was also a deterrent for many.
"I want to be able to sync to different devices," said Chenelle Brandford, a 17-year-old student from North London.
In Singapore, the Samsung kiosk at a StarHub store was crowded, with
customers testing out the South Korean manufacturer's Note 2
phone-tablets.
"I didn't want to get stuck in the Apple ecosystem," said one customer who recently bought an Android phone made by LG.
At a major electronics retailer in downtown Shanghai, most tablet
shoppers said their first choice would be an iPad, but Samsung also had
its share of fans.
"I don't like the iPad
because it is too inconvenient to use. You cannot drag files directly
into it but only by using iTunes," said Wang Daliu, 26 and unemployed.
"The iPad has a closed system, limiting its capability."
The laggards
Since Amazon, Google and Microsoft sell most of their tablets online,
their devices came up less often than Samsung's and Apple's in Reuters
interviews with shoppers.
Those companies are
building their own ecosystems, but none have neared Apple's success at
creating a simple-to-use, closed market of apps, music and content.
Microsoft, worried about declining PC sales, launched its foray into
hardware with the Surface tablet in October to compete with the iPad.
The world's largest software company has not revealed sales figures for
the tablet, which has won mixed reviews and is only available in its
own stores and online in certain countries. On Tuesday, Microsoft said
it would sell the Surface through more retailers starting this month.
At a mall in Boston, one person wandered into a Microsoft store for
every nine who visited a nearby Apple store on a weekday last week. In
Palo Alto, 40-year-old Javier Sanchez returned his Surface.
"With the iPad, it's one step, and with this (Surface), it's two or
three steps to do the same thing," said Sanchez, who also uses a Mac and
an iPhone. "You open (the iPad) and it's ready for you."
Things looked not much brighter on Microsoft's home turf, in the
greater Seattle area. A sales assistant at a Best Buy said he had been
quizzed about sales of the Windows 8 device.
"A
whole bunch of Microsoft guys basically interviewed me, asking me how
well things were selling," he said, without going into details.
Another assistant, asked if the same store had 32GB or 64GB Surface tablets in stock, said, laughing: "We got plenty of both!"
Apple is likely to reveal holiday sales only in January, alongside results. For now, the loyalists have spoken.
"We're far more familiar with Apple," said Linda Jenkins at the
Carphone Warehouse in London. Her husband, Vaughan, chimed in: "But they
haven't taken us over yet!" — Reuters
0 comments:
Post a Comment