It seems that not everyone is anticipating the launch of iPhone in their country. Well, at least not in India.
The launch in Hong Kong and Singapore was fascinating and quite successful. I was there in Hong Kong when the iPhone was first launched, long queues and big crowds were easily to be seen outside the selected mobile phone outlets. So does what happened in Singapore, but unfortunately not in India.
It is reported there were only around 12,000 units sold since its first day launching in India, which is less than a quarter of the imported 50,000 iPhones for sale in India. Is this the effect of the economy slowdown? Or disappointing marketing campaign? Or just merely difference in taste?
Anyway, some say that a flawed sales and distribution model and communications failure contributed heavily to the debacle, such as :-
- Outlets failed to obtain necessary permissions to stay open in midnight for the midnight sale.
- Apple spent very little on marketing for the iPhone prior to its launch
- Apple’s failure to properly communicate how much the iPhone would cost in India
Apple initially announced that iPhone would be selling for about US$199 globally and this news gave potential customers false hope because Apple is now selling 8Gig version for US$700, while 16Gig version for US$825 in India.
I suppose iPhone will be launched in Malaysia next year, which is a year troubled by bad economy. Do you think we’ll see pathetic sale here as well?
Blogsphere: TechnoratiFeedsterBloglines
Bookmark: Del.icio.usSpurlFurlSimpyBlinkDigg
RSS feed for comments on this post
I think anything hot and trend will sell in HK! Many, many mainland Chinese go there for holidays and shopping. Maybe the Indians (unlike the Chinese) don’t think cellphones are that important???
I know I’d love to own one but with the price hike of US$199 to US$700 each? Forget it! What the heck is Steve Jobs thinking or maybe he’s not part of the marketing/pricing committee LOL
i wonder when iphone will be officially come to malaysia
I also think so, I can feel the shopping mood of theirs during July when I was there! Haha…
Perhaps only the 3 Telco and Apple know the exact date, but I guess should be early next year.