China is a country that many hate but love at the same time. China’s economic engine will never stop, at least for many years to come, thanks to initial cheap labour and the huge production mills migration from the United States. And the U.S. unemployment may never recover as long as the country continue to export or outsource their labour intensive production lines to China. And China is set to overtake United States as the largest economic powerhouse in the world soon.
Like it or not, China has a well-earned reputation for producing illegal knock-offs of luxury brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Rolex. Heck, you can get Angry Bird iPhone accessories here cheaply. Everyone know how Huawei copied what was inside Cisco networking products and build the Huawei brand to what it is today. In short, whatever you wish to imitate, you can get some factories in China to produce it, minus the quality assurance.
Many still remember how Starbucks trademark was copied by a Shanghai coffee company. But if you think that was bad, think about the surprises that was in store when an American blogger, BirdAbroad, stumbled upon in China – a complete fake Apple Store. Apple’s iPhone and iPad were in great demand in China so much so that people actually make good money queuing hours getting their hands on the gadgets only to sell them for a huge profit.
However, this is perhaps the first time that an entire Apple store was copied. Not only the store was imitated from the design to its logo, the staffs were wearing blue T-shirts with official Apple insignia and bulky name tags and interestingly, they actually thought they were working for Apple. Located in Kunming in the city’s Zhengyi St., this store is not authorized by Apple to sell its products. While the manager of the store admitted it was not one of Apple’s authorized dealers, she insisted its products are authentic although she kept mum on how the products were obtained.
Despite China’s government pledges to crack down on piracy and the production of counterfeit goods, this latest revelation shows that counterfeiting is not just alive and well in China but thriving. Needless to say, Apple has said it has no comment to make on the discovery of the counterfeit Apple store, not that it can do anything about it in the first place. Either Apple is still shocked by the revelation or it actually is still admiring the brilliant beautiful ripoff, probably the best one ever. Maybe, Apple should just close-one-eye if the fake store actually helps Apple sell its genuine products.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- Apple’s BlockBuster Earnings, iPad Eating Up PC Market
- How Did Some Great Companies Get Their Cool Names?
- Apple, Most Valuable Brand – Little Secret Of Its Dictator
- Don’t Trust Gartner’s Smart-Phone Market Forecast
- Chinese Prisoners Make Money Play Games, Farm Gold
- China To Become New Economic Powerhouse in 2016?
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July 21st, 2011 by financetwitter
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