It might be their strategy, but I don't buy that it will work. Luxury watches are supposed to age well. Consumer electronics do not. The first Apple Watch might sell better in China than the U.S., but I don't think it will have staying power as a luxury item.
I saw a headline the other day that said something like "with the introduction of the watch, Apple has lost its soul" As a lover of watches, and even as kind of an apple fanboy - I tend to agree. I looked through the pricing of the watch. The most expensive from the apple store is $17,000. I then maxed out the specs on the top of the line machine that apple offers. The Mac Pro, fully loaded with displays, and for good measure, I threw in an 8TB high speed storage array. The cost - MAXED OUT is $16,158. so there it is. if you had $17k to burn, you could buy a pipe-hitting desktop computer that would likely remain relevant for longer than most desktop computers and be screaming fast while you have it. Or... you could buy a fashion accessory that will likely be obsolete in 2-3 years. Oh - and clocking in at $17,000, you're getting exactly the same functionality as a $349 watch. too right - I still have the original iPhone (in a box in a drawer)... it was truly obsolete in 4 years.Luxury watches are supposed to age well. Consumer electronics do not.
Well - they've changed the store since I priced the last one - I can no longer add displays or the array... so I can only get the machine itself to $9737 - but this proves the point all the more... the most expensive machine I can configure is now sub 10k, but I can buy a watch for $18k? ridiculous IMHO.
I dunno - they convinced me. By arguing that Apple has become the most recognizable luxury brand in China, they can pretty much rewrite what luxury watches are "supposed" to do. After all, they've done a pretty good job of convincing their customers to buy a new phone every eighteen months or so. If they can convince the 300m people in China's middle class that luxury items need charging and are to be replaced every 18 months, they can create an entire category of luxury items. The fact that there are no Android Wear rip-offs available on the black market but there are already a half-dozen fake Apple Watches was pretty compelling evidence of the soundness of the strategy as far as I'm concerned. But only time will tell.
>After all, they've done a pretty good job of convincing their customers to buy a new phone every eighteen months or so. I think that has more to do with carrier contracts than anything else. new products in all categories come out all the time, and most people don't upgrade until theirs breaks. my cable company won't give me a new TV free with a 2 year contract, but the cell phone company will.
Small sample size, but I was at lunch with my nouveau riche Chinese brother-in-law yesterday, and I asked him what he thought about the watch. He said it would have to be very useful before he considered it because you need to charge it so often. Yesterday night, my wife was browsing WeChat, and started laughing. I asked her why, and she said that it was a thread making fun of the Apple Watch. Doesn't seem a slam dunk from my limited Chinese market research.