One factor for piracy in China is the convenience of it.
Case in point, my iPhone. I have the 3G model, bought right here in Taizhou. Originally the phone came with a third party SIM card modification installed. There was a little chip you could place between your regular SIM and the phone so it would accept any SIM card. This was coupled with a custom piece of software to allow any code on the phone. However, me (or any customer for that matter) wouldn't need to bother about the details.
The shopkeeper had installed everything. He was an authorized Apple retailer, who had the phone ready to go within minutes of the purchase decision. All I needed was my own SIM and I could use any legit software or any copy. The only drawback was the unability to update the software should Apple release a patch.
And release a patch Apple did. The new official software had a couple of functions I wanted, so I returned back to the shop to ask what to do. I had actually researched a bit before, and found out there was a new version of the piggyback SIM solution, as well as a new software solution. The online reports on the software solution were conflictory and I couldn't fathom if it'd work on China Mobile or not. Luckily my retailer did.
He told me the software method was all that was needed now, and that he'd do it for a modest 100 RMB fee within an hour. He had about three other phones going through the process at the moment, but I haggled a bit. The price didn't come down but the time dropped to 30 minutes. I let him do it, and boy did he know how to run an iPhone.
He had three computers all set up with the necessary tools and backups to modify any phone. He jacked in the phone, ran through a few clicks and he actually finishd in 30 minutes. Most of this was spent looking at a loading bar onscreen - the service was quick and smooth. No hassle, no worries. I walked away with a software modified phone with the latest Apple patch installed.
Great service, and the guy even recommended a Chinese media hub website made for the phone, as well as suggested a data plan for my mobile provider in order to drop my charges. This I had already done, but it all adds to the service. Oh, and none of this was in any way under the table or behind closed doors. This was straight up service in the largest computer center of the city.
No, Apple does not have a version of the phone for the Chinese market. Yes, it's quite a popular phone here regardless. A regular customer would have problems installing the hacks at home, but the retailers do all the work.
OP Out.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Happy New Year
Happy Chinese New Year!
When I first arrived to Taizhou I asked about weather as part of small talk. I was told it doesn't get very cold during the winter, and that it doesn't really snow, perhaps once in few years.
It's snowing again today, enough to make the grass white. If it keeps up the roads will be white too. Nobody has access to winter tires for their cars of course, but from what I've seen the snow should be gone in a few days. It does make the New Year a little more special in its own way, and I don't mean accident statistics for a change.
Again, from the YDKC Team, Welcome to 4707, year of the Ox!
When I first arrived to Taizhou I asked about weather as part of small talk. I was told it doesn't get very cold during the winter, and that it doesn't really snow, perhaps once in few years.
It's snowing again today, enough to make the grass white. If it keeps up the roads will be white too. Nobody has access to winter tires for their cars of course, but from what I've seen the snow should be gone in a few days. It does make the New Year a little more special in its own way, and I don't mean accident statistics for a change.
Again, from the YDKC Team, Welcome to 4707, year of the Ox!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
New Year Alcohol
It seems alcohol makes for a good New Year gift here. The second image is a part of the new liquor and tobacco section opened to the local super market for New Year. They already had a large wine and liquor section, but they built a new counter and set up a second larger area for gift packages.
The first image is of the gift boxed bottle sets available here. You can see the price ranges from modest to prohibitvely expensive, but what the image fails to fully capture is how beautiful some of the sets are. The sets usually include a bottle and a few glasses, or two bottles and two glasses. These are packed in boxes (wooden for the better sets) lined with cloth and come with gift bags to carry - they sets are ready gifts.
The bottle designs themselves vary a great deal but the best I saw was in the sub 500 RMB range, where the set had two glass bottles, both with a small glass ship inside, New Year wishes scribed on the sails. I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to take a photo, but the photos I did get should give you an idea. The whole concept goes way above and beyond anything I've seen in alcohol marketing before.
Cigarettes are another possible gift, and the second pic has cartons stacked upon cartons. The red cartons are actually the most expensive cigarettes sold in super markets, 40 RMB a pack. The counter of course has many other brands for sale too.
This is just a part of the shopping people do for their #1 holiday of the year, but you can trust me the markets are filled with snacks and candy. It's very similar to Finnish Christmas shopping, but the boxes of chocolate have been replaced with hard liquor. If this concept was implemented in Finland we would see a Christmas with statistics so grim people wouldn't complain about the lack of snow, but here it works.
OP Out.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Usable Statistics - The Chinese Market for Foreign Companies
The National Bureau of Statistics released new information regarding the real urban disposable income per capita. The figures given were as follows:
Real disposable income per capita of China's urban and rural residents in 2008 rose 8.4 pct and 8.0 pct, respectively.
The growth was slower than 2007 levels of 12.2 pct and 9.5 pct.
NBS also said per-capita disposable income of urban residents was 15,781 yuan while that of rural residents was 4,761 yuan.
I'll help you a little further and give you the urban population stat, it's over 577 million (sorry for the 2006 figure, but somewhere under 600 million is about right I believe.)
What this means is that foreign companies eyeing China as a market do not have 1.3 billion potential customers. They don't even have have 600 million potential customers if their product is too expensive.
The richer potential customer who lives in a city has a rough 1300 RMB a month to spend. For reference, that's about 190 USD. But that doesn't really matter, the exchange rate doesn't come in to play when you have a certain amount of available money and shops offer certain products. What matters is that people take a long, long time to purchase items which cost more than they have available in a month. It's a simple thought, of course, but it means the people focus on purchasing things which cost single digit percentages of their available money, as well as low double-digits more seldom.
Now consider entering the Chinese market. You have 600 million customers who are willing to spend 1% - 25% of their available money on a purchase. This is not a real statistic but the point is valid. The money spent is around 13 RMB to 325 RMB. This is what a foreign company will have to consider as their more affluent customer. Suddenly it isn't a very welcoming market with 1.3 potential customers, is it?
Now consider there already exist a Chinese alternative for most of the goods foreigners would import. Anything from electronics to clothing to food can be made differently enough to be unique and brought here, but there will be a domestic good that is at least somewhat similar and cheaper.
Recall the first statistic the next time you see a movie studio or a software producer complain about piracy in China. It's not that the Chinese love copies for the sake of copying, it's because the legal alternative is priced way out of their range. Want to sell Windows Vista here and price it at 140 dollars? Well don't be surprised at the huge backlash when your anti-piracy tool blacks out thousands of computer screens and the people are angry at your software. But that's just one example showing how difficult a market China is for foreign companies. And this comes up before you even think of the trouble localizing your product.
OP Out.
Real disposable income per capita of China's urban and rural residents in 2008 rose 8.4 pct and 8.0 pct, respectively.
The growth was slower than 2007 levels of 12.2 pct and 9.5 pct.
NBS also said per-capita disposable income of urban residents was 15,781 yuan while that of rural residents was 4,761 yuan.
I'll help you a little further and give you the urban population stat, it's over 577 million (sorry for the 2006 figure, but somewhere under 600 million is about right I believe.)
What this means is that foreign companies eyeing China as a market do not have 1.3 billion potential customers. They don't even have have 600 million potential customers if their product is too expensive.
The richer potential customer who lives in a city has a rough 1300 RMB a month to spend. For reference, that's about 190 USD. But that doesn't really matter, the exchange rate doesn't come in to play when you have a certain amount of available money and shops offer certain products. What matters is that people take a long, long time to purchase items which cost more than they have available in a month. It's a simple thought, of course, but it means the people focus on purchasing things which cost single digit percentages of their available money, as well as low double-digits more seldom.
Now consider entering the Chinese market. You have 600 million customers who are willing to spend 1% - 25% of their available money on a purchase. This is not a real statistic but the point is valid. The money spent is around 13 RMB to 325 RMB. This is what a foreign company will have to consider as their more affluent customer. Suddenly it isn't a very welcoming market with 1.3 potential customers, is it?
Now consider there already exist a Chinese alternative for most of the goods foreigners would import. Anything from electronics to clothing to food can be made differently enough to be unique and brought here, but there will be a domestic good that is at least somewhat similar and cheaper.
Recall the first statistic the next time you see a movie studio or a software producer complain about piracy in China. It's not that the Chinese love copies for the sake of copying, it's because the legal alternative is priced way out of their range. Want to sell Windows Vista here and price it at 140 dollars? Well don't be surprised at the huge backlash when your anti-piracy tool blacks out thousands of computer screens and the people are angry at your software. But that's just one example showing how difficult a market China is for foreign companies. And this comes up before you even think of the trouble localizing your product.
OP Out.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Chinese Hospitals
Since the last post on the hospitals was so dready I thought I would comment a little further. This is mostly since I don't actually have poor thoughts on Chinese hospitals, in fact, I've had reservations and prejudices but good experiences.
For the Chinese, it appears to me, they expect two things when they go to a hospital. They want to see a result and they want to see medicine. For a Finnish person a hospital is not something you visit for a flu but the Chinese think differently.
All of the hospitals I've seen have had large rooms for patients waiting for their IV to drip. This is the most common flu treatment too, you go in, the doctor takes your temperature, listens to your description of the symptoms and prescribes an IV. It's usually a 500ml bag of glucose, another of salt water and some medicine given intravenously. If you suffer from diarrhea or have similar symptoms the treatment is mostly similar, but the doctor is more likely to prescribe the same over three days. The last time my wife went to the hospital it was 3x500ml bags per day for three days plus all the other medicine. This is similar to children, except that they insert the liquid into the forehead instead of the arm and the quantities are smaller.
This kind of treatment is very common here, but the Chinese expect value for their money, even at a doctor. They would feel cheated if the doctor told them to go home, stay warm and call back in two days if the patient didn't feel better.
This seems like a cookie-cutter approach to medicine, but it responds very well to what the customers expect and it's fast enough. The doctors don't need too much time per patient, and to be honest, the patients don't need more - they would likely get better on their own too.
The IV rooms in nicer hospitals have TV:s and I've even seen a room divided in to two areas, one with hard plastic benches and one with beds for those who will pay an extra 10 RMB / visit for the comfort. The hospitals need to make money, but they also have to keep the costs of the visit to a minimum.
The costs of a hospital visit aren't great, but I can imagine they add up to a family. A typical visit will cost 5RMB, which will get you in to the hospital and a brief consultation with a doctor. The prescribed liquids and medicine are then bought from the hospital pharmacy and taken to the treatment room. Depending on the quantity of the medicine one can expect to spend around 50-100 RMB for treatment for flu or food poisoning.
Since I now have experience (by proxy) on surgery I can claim it too is reasonably priced, quick and efficient. The cesarean section is a routine operation anywhere, obviously, but many Chinese mothers opt for the operation instead of the pain of labor. The hospital provided us with a lower uterine segment section (I believe). The whole operation took about 45 minutes from entering the operation room to handing me the baby, and a total of less than 2 hours before the mother was already recovering. Local customs aside, the hospital worked nicely and my wife recovered quickly.
The post-operation treatment included bed rest, IVs and soup. Later more rest, IVs and porridge, followed by IVs, solid food and rest. Five days in the hospital is the typical time it takes to release a patient from a cesarean here, as was the case with my wife. The greatest surprise was the cost of the operation - the work itself, excluding medication and other costs was 1100 RMB. The hospital stay, clothing for the baby, nursing staff, medicine, IVs, diapers and other associated costs added up to less than 5000 RMB, all for a grand total under 6000 RMB. Yes, it's a big amount of money for an average family, but keep in mind this was in the Taizhou Central Hospital and included everything. Giving a normal birth in the hospital would have cost around 1600 RMB, including perhaps one night and two days recovering before release.
No, the hygiene standard isn't as high here as it is in Finland, and no, the rooms aren't as nice and quiet, but the whole system works, and it works fast. All in all a good show from the hospital.
OP Out.
For the Chinese, it appears to me, they expect two things when they go to a hospital. They want to see a result and they want to see medicine. For a Finnish person a hospital is not something you visit for a flu but the Chinese think differently.
All of the hospitals I've seen have had large rooms for patients waiting for their IV to drip. This is the most common flu treatment too, you go in, the doctor takes your temperature, listens to your description of the symptoms and prescribes an IV. It's usually a 500ml bag of glucose, another of salt water and some medicine given intravenously. If you suffer from diarrhea or have similar symptoms the treatment is mostly similar, but the doctor is more likely to prescribe the same over three days. The last time my wife went to the hospital it was 3x500ml bags per day for three days plus all the other medicine. This is similar to children, except that they insert the liquid into the forehead instead of the arm and the quantities are smaller.
This kind of treatment is very common here, but the Chinese expect value for their money, even at a doctor. They would feel cheated if the doctor told them to go home, stay warm and call back in two days if the patient didn't feel better.
This seems like a cookie-cutter approach to medicine, but it responds very well to what the customers expect and it's fast enough. The doctors don't need too much time per patient, and to be honest, the patients don't need more - they would likely get better on their own too.
The IV rooms in nicer hospitals have TV:s and I've even seen a room divided in to two areas, one with hard plastic benches and one with beds for those who will pay an extra 10 RMB / visit for the comfort. The hospitals need to make money, but they also have to keep the costs of the visit to a minimum.
The costs of a hospital visit aren't great, but I can imagine they add up to a family. A typical visit will cost 5RMB, which will get you in to the hospital and a brief consultation with a doctor. The prescribed liquids and medicine are then bought from the hospital pharmacy and taken to the treatment room. Depending on the quantity of the medicine one can expect to spend around 50-100 RMB for treatment for flu or food poisoning.
Since I now have experience (by proxy) on surgery I can claim it too is reasonably priced, quick and efficient. The cesarean section is a routine operation anywhere, obviously, but many Chinese mothers opt for the operation instead of the pain of labor. The hospital provided us with a lower uterine segment section (I believe). The whole operation took about 45 minutes from entering the operation room to handing me the baby, and a total of less than 2 hours before the mother was already recovering. Local customs aside, the hospital worked nicely and my wife recovered quickly.
The post-operation treatment included bed rest, IVs and soup. Later more rest, IVs and porridge, followed by IVs, solid food and rest. Five days in the hospital is the typical time it takes to release a patient from a cesarean here, as was the case with my wife. The greatest surprise was the cost of the operation - the work itself, excluding medication and other costs was 1100 RMB. The hospital stay, clothing for the baby, nursing staff, medicine, IVs, diapers and other associated costs added up to less than 5000 RMB, all for a grand total under 6000 RMB. Yes, it's a big amount of money for an average family, but keep in mind this was in the Taizhou Central Hospital and included everything. Giving a normal birth in the hospital would have cost around 1600 RMB, including perhaps one night and two days recovering before release.
No, the hygiene standard isn't as high here as it is in Finland, and no, the rooms aren't as nice and quiet, but the whole system works, and it works fast. All in all a good show from the hospital.
OP Out.
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