Horace Dediu – industry analyst with a focus on mobile phones, posted an interesting very piece comparing Apple and Microsoft progress in China.
Dediu pointed out that despite Microsoft’s huge investment in China over the years, Apple has made more headway in China than Micosoft in a shorter time span. Microsoft’s revenue in China in 2011 was reported to be 5% of what it obtained in the US.
“The contrast is even more stark when one considers the time and effort each company has made in China,” Dediu writes. “Microsoft has been investing and promoting itself in China for decades while Apple barely had any presence 3 years ago.”
Dediu pointed out that Apple has seen more growth in China over the last three years, than the tech giant in the US in 33 years.
“Apple’s China net sales in fiscal 2009 were only 769 million. In 2012 they were $22.8 billion,” Dediu writes. “That is a figure greater than US sales three years earlier. Put another way, China sales grew in three years as much as they did in the US in 33.”
Dediu posits that the key to Apple astronomical growth in China in largely down to iOS, according to Dediu, China’s mobile users outnumbers their US counterpart by a ratio of 3:1.
“Without a mobile portfolio Microsoft is severely hampered. Of course, Microsoft is trying and has made several attempts to place its Windows Phone in the hands of Chinese users,” Dediu states. “It’s a tough sale however because Microsoft must work through partners. They need to get vendors to license the OS and the operators to range the devices and retailers to push it. Given the flood of “free” Android variants they are having trouble even starting down that long road.”
Source: Asymco
