Saturday, February 18, 2017

Ramanan — The All American iPhone: Bad, Or Good?


I would guess that an All-American iPhone would be even more of a luxury-aficianado product than it already is. Would that help or hurt Apple, and how would it affect the US economy. 

The iPhone is already a Veblen good in the Chinese market where it is losing market shares as Chinese companies produce increasing competitive lower-priced rivals. Apple's strategy is not to compete for the bottom end or even middle but to focus on the top. It's called "positioning" in marketing. American-made, like German-made, is also positioning.

The Case for Concerted Action
The All American iPhone: Bad, Or Good?
V. Ramanan

2 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

Nokia is re-launching one of its old phones: the 3310 I think. All you do with it is . . . wait for it . . . make phone calls!!! That'll do me. It's called the "dummie phone", but I'm not bothered.

Tom Hickey said...

Edward Snowden recommends using a dumb phone if one is interested in security and privacy. Smartphones are boobytrapped.