手機中的土豪金 中國不老流行色

The dumbest column I ever wrote was the one that suggested that if Apple wanted to sell a lot of iPhones in China it should stick with silver.

我曾在一篇專欄中寫道，如果蘋果（Apple）希望iPhone在中國市場上大賣，就應該堅定不移地出銀色版iPhone。事實證明這是我錯得最離譜的一次。

This was just about a year ago. Rumors were flying that Apple was about to launch a champagne-gold iPhone because gold was such a prestigious color in China. I went looking for market research on national color preferences, and the closest thing I could find was a Dupont chart that showed that the best-selling automobile color in China was silver, not gold.

這大概也就是一年前的事。當時傳聞蘋果即將推出一款香檳色iPhone，因爲金色在中國是身份的象徵。我查找了關於各國人色彩偏好的市場調研，還找到了杜邦公司（Dupont）發佈的一份圖表，該圖表顯示，在中國銀色汽車最暢銷，而非金色。

Cars, it turns out, are not the same as phones.

但事實證明，汽車與手機是兩碼事。

The gold iPhone 5S was a huge hit in China. It sold out immediately in Hong Kong and the mainland. Customers in New York City buying for export lined up around the block. Gold iPhones were soon commanding mark-ups of several hundred dollar apiece in China’s grey markets.

金色版的iPhone5S在中國大獲成功，很快在香港和中國大陸銷售一空。在紐約，購買無鎖版土豪金iPhone5S的買家排起了長隊。很快，在中國的“灰市”，金色版iPhone手機每部需要加價數百美元才能買到。

Apple, it seems, knew what it was doing. In December it finally cut a distribution deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier. In February, China Mobile announced that iPhones accounted for more than half of the phones on its brand new 4G network. By last week, that network had grown to more than 14 million subscribers.

蘋果當時就似乎胸有成竹。去年十二月，它終於與全球最大的運營商——中國移動達成了分銷協議。今年二月，中國移動宣佈，使用該公司全新4G網絡的手機中，一半以上是iPhone。截至上上週，中國移動的4G網絡用戶已超過1400萬。

“China, honestly was surprising to us,” Tim Cook told analysts last week. “We thought it would be strong but it went well past what we thought. We came in at 26% of revenue growth, including retail and if you look at the units, the unit growth was really off the charts across the board. I found 48% growth that compares to a market estimate of 24%. So growing it two times the market.”

蒂姆o庫克日前向分析師們表示：“中國着實令我們吃驚。我們知道在中國市場的銷售會很強勁，但結果比我們預想的還要好得多。我們的營收（包括零售在內）增長了26%，而如果按銷售的產品數量計，可謂全面飆升，產品銷量的增速高達48%，而市場預期爲24%，所以實際增速是市場預期的兩倍。”

“Whoever proposed the champagne gold model can’t be rewarded enough for the cascading benefits Apple has enjoyed from it,” writes an American ex-pat who posts here as Jake_in_Seoul.

署名“傑克在首爾”（Jake_in_Seoul）的一位駐外美國讀者說：“香檳金版iPhone令蘋果賺得盆滿鉢滿，提議推出該模型的員工應該獲得重獎。”

Jake, as regulars here know, is a keen observer of the Asian smartphone market. In January we re-posted a letter he wrote from China that adds some color (pardon the pun) to the Chinese iPhone story:

常讀這個專欄的讀者都知道，“傑克”對亞洲智能手機市場的觀察十分敏銳。今年1月，我們轉發了他從中國發來的一封信，令中國的iPhone故事更生動起來。

“iPhones here are not predominant, but are readily seen, certainly in the hands of wealthy and powerful, (e.g., a local real estate tycoon), but also surprisingly owned by the likes of hotel clerks and a remarkable noodle shop girl. Ownership seems to be a state of mind.

“iPhone在中國沒有佔據市場支配地位，但用的人也不少，有錢有勢的人（比如說房地產大亨）肯定都是用iPhone，但出人意料的是，飯店職員甚至麪館小妹也可能用着iPhone。購iPhone與否，似乎取決於心態。”

“I was amused in a casual conversation to hear Samsung (known in China by its Chinese/Korean character name San Xing Sanxing = “Three Stars”) referred to as a “Chinese phone”… I suspect this misunderstanding may not be uncommon and hence highly aggravating to Samsung.

“在一次閒聊中，我聽到三星（在中國採用其漢字名稱）被人稱作‘中國手機’品牌，太逗了。我懷疑不少人都存在這種誤解，三星肯定對此很困擾。”

“The iPhone, by contrast, is now called ‘iPhone’ (using roman letters) in every press article I’ve seen recently, and a Chinese character equivalent Ai Feng (Aifeng = ‘Love Crazed’) is increasingly used only as slang in advertising, on Weibo, in blogs etc. The brand maintains its pristine foreign identity.

“相比之下，在我近期看到的所有新聞報道中，iPhone都是採用本身的英文名稱，而中文說法‘愛瘋’日益作爲俚語用於廣告、微博、博客中。其品牌本身的外國身份很明顯。

“The fact that an awareness of Apple and the iPhone has so quickly and widely penetrated Chinese society is a remarkable achievement, one likely due to the perceived excellence of Apple technology and also to good timing, as cell phone culture comes of age here. As long as Apple continues to produce cool products, it will surely gain adherents in China as more and more people can afford them.”

“蘋果和iPhone在中國的認知度迅速廣泛提升，是一項了不起的成就。這可能一是因爲人們認爲蘋果技術卓越，二是因爲時機剛剛好，因爲手機文化正在中國發展到了一定階段。隨着越來越多的中國人能買得起蘋果產品，只要該公司繼續生產炫酷的產品，肯定會在中國獲得大量擁躉。”