The stylish entrance to the massive Apple Store in Pudong, Shanghai. Photo / Supplied
Apple is still rising, and who knows how long this story will run? PC shipments in the UK for the second quarter of this year were down 15 per cent on the year before, at 2.5 million units. Western Europe saw an even more precipitous decline of 18.9 per cent year over year, with a total of 12.7 million shipments.
Samsung saw the best growth in the UK market by increasing shipments 5.2 per cent. Apple was the only other top vendor to see positive growth there, with a one-percent increase in shipments in the UK, and a 6.4 per cent gain in France.
But then there's China, which is going mad for Apple products. China seems to be the bulwark of everything these days - it not only manufactures pretty much everything, it also buys staggering amounts of raw materials (keeping Australia in the good times).
It has a fast-rising middle class: 80 per cent of consumers in China express interest in purchasing a tablet versus 40 per cent in North America and 50 per cent in Europe. And we all know who still sells the most tablets.
China has been very good for Apple. It not only cheaply manufactures all of Apple's products, but Chinese sales of those same devices have been showing strong growth. Recent quarterly reports from China show a sixfold increase in year-over-year revenue in Apple's third quarter.
In its most recent investor call, Apple reported its total sales revenue in the region as US$3.8 billion. Now it looks like Apple is even beating a longtime regional heavyweight for the first time by passing Lenovo ($2.8 billion in sales during its most recent financial quarter).
Lenovo is still strong - it grew 23.4 per cent compared to a year ago, and it remains the third-biggest PC maker worldwide by shipment volume. Lenovo was the largest in China for eleven years straight.
But Apple sailed by due to strong iPhone and iPad sales.
Apple's iPhone presence in China should get even stronger, once China Mobile starts selling it.
If you include iPad, Apple is the number one mobile PC manufacturer in the world, beating rival HP for the top spot in the latest quarterly rankings, according to display industry research firm DisplaySearch.
Apple shipped 13.5 million units for a year-over-year growth of 136 per cent. Meanwhile the PC industry (that which makes non-Apple computers, pedants) is experiencing negative growth in some markets and slowing in others.
Notebooks are down but the tablet market is up. Remember when notebooks and netbooks were going to save the PC industry from the recession? Oops.
Even without the iPad, tablet shipments were up 25 per cent year over year, with more than 5.6 million shipped during the latest quarter, according to DisplaySearch. But Apple stands to gain the most from the inclusion of tablets, since the iPad remains the clear category leader while other tablet makers struggle to gain market share.
Apple's rivals, stuck with too many units and too few buyers, seem likely to start a price war. The problem stems from "weaker sales than their order volumes" amid tepid consumer demand for tablets not bearing the Apple logo, says Asian industry watcher DigiTimes.
But iPad 2 is still flying off shelves despite its premium pricing, which must be causing some headaches for others. According to DisplaySearch, Apple now has 21.1 per cent of the mobile PC market by shipments. HP is the next closest, with 15 per cent. Dell, Acer and Lenovo make up the rest of the top 5, netting 11.6, 10.9 and 7.5 per cent respectively.
Now, some of these rival tablets may be way better than iPads (I don't know) but frankly, if they're not being bought ... so what? Apple is projected to have 64 per cent of tablet sales this year and perhaps 41 per cent in 2012, according to Misek, if rivals grow.
I guess it's not done to throw in the towel, at least while Apple is proving in no uncertain terms that a tablet market exists. Besides, price cuts might lead to a few footholds being gained, and there looks like there won't be an iPad 3 until 2012.
That said, HP is chucking it in. The Wall Street Journal reports that HP is exiting the tablet and smartphone hardware business, although it will continue work on webOS and perhaps license it out to third-party manufacturers.
Apple's five Chinese stores are much larger than US stores to accommodate the crowds. The five or so Apple Stores attract as many as 40,000 people each. Daily. (There are also hundreds of licensed Apple Resellers.)
From 2010 to 2011, Apple's revenue in greater China ballooned 600 per cent, totalling $8.8 billion for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2011.
Apple hasn't always been a sales powerhouse in China. It's only relatively recently that Apple has had any brand identity in China at all, but today, Apple's devices are permeating the high end of Chinese society, effectively marketed as luxury goods.
But none of Apple's financial growth in China takes into account the rather bizarre dichotomy that China represents: terrific capitalist growth and the rise of middle and upper classes under a command economy which is still enforcing an old-school and utterly redundant Communist ideology.
Chinese society could all precipitously collapse into an indescribably awful mess, but then there's the 'only in China' factor: since this opposing duality has already lasted way longer than most observers would expect (or reasonably hope), it still seems fairly impregnable - from the outside, anyway.
Christina Larson, writing for the site < a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/01/red_delicious_and_rotten"target="new">Foreign Policy, points out that Apple still markets itself as an underdog in the US and other markets. But in China the company is positioned alongside the likes of Armani, BMW and Versace.
It was three years ago that Apple rolled up its sleeves and developed the marketing strategies that are now paying dividends in the huge country.
An 'outsider under-dog' was never going to cut it, there.
You can well imagine that Apple's iconic Super Bowl Big Brother ad would go down like a cup of sick in China.
Yet elements still ring true. Apple has always marketed aspirations over specs. An iPad competitor boasts in a US TV commercial that "your wife will love the dual-core Tegra 2 chipset." Now does that sound like your wife? Or even your brother?
Apple's marketing has always been different. It's always been about the experience of using the product, not the hard, extremely technical work that goes into building the devices.
(Cynics will no doubt also point out that the specs - of Macs, anyway - are nothing to get excited about.)
But as Macworl points out, "Apple's mastery of design and user interface comes not from luck, but from testing countless iterations, making and reevaluating decision after decision. That's not magic. It's hard work, intelligence, and a relentless attention to the user experience."
Meanwhile, China's economy keeps growing - and now it's both building and buying the Apple dream.
- Mark Webster mac-nz.com
Trump Mobile was launched by Trump's sons at Trump Tower in New York.