【经济学人】腾讯与苹果的明争暗斗丨2017.05.18丨总第916期

Neither factor works as well in China. There, many of Apple’s services have not taken off. The American giant missed the boat on music sales in the country, reckons Matthew Brennan of China Channel, a technology consultancy. Its sales of books are blocked by the government.

不过这两点在中国却不起作用，苹果公司的许多服务也并没有成功。中国频道的技术顾问Matthew Brennan 认为，苹果公司错失了在中国销售音乐的机会，政府也阻止苹果出售书籍。

In addition, few would disagree that its messaging service is a flop and that Apple Pay, its mobile-payment offering, is irrelevant—its market share on the mainland is only 1%. A “genius” employee at an Apple store in Shanghai admits sheepishly that “iCloud doesn’t work very well in China.”

另外，几乎所有人认为苹果的短信服务是彻底失败的，也认为苹果的移动支付应用也是没有必要的，苹果支付在大陆所占的市场份额仅1%。上海一家苹果商店里的一位销售“天才吧”的工作人员含羞地承认，苹果云服务在中国运行的不是很好。

• flop ： 彻底失败

• mobile-payment  ： 移动支付

And switching is a doddle in China, observes Ben Thompson of Stratechery, an industry newsletter . Nearly everyone uses WeChat, an app made by Tencent, one of China’s three big internet giants, for everything from social media to payments. Through WeChat it is easy to transfer photos, messages, contacts and payments history maintained on that app from one device to another.

行业资讯服务机构Stratechery的Ben Thompson表示，在中国，换部手机是一件非常容易的事。从社会媒体到支付等一切事情，每个人都是通过腾讯（中国三大互联网巨头之一）推出的微信来完成。在微信上，从一个手机向另一个手机传输照片、短信、联系人以及消费历史也是很简单的。

• doddle :  n.轻而易举的事

• an industry newsletter : 产业时事通讯
  

No wonder that Apple’s retention rate among iPhone users, which tops 80% in America and Britain, is only 50% in China. That does not bode well for a key market. Apple’s revenues in greater China have nearly doubled since 2013, to $48.5bn in 2016, thanks in part to its mainland app store. App Annie, a research firm, reckons it is the world’s biggest Apple app store, as measured by revenue. But Apple’s results for the first quarter of the year showed total sales falling by some 14% in greater China compared with a year ago, the fifth consecutive quarter of decline. Canalys, a market-research firm, estimates that shipments of iPhones on the mainland plunged by a quarter in the first quarter.

难怪，在苹果手机用户中，在美国和英国持有率有80%的苹果公司的软件在中国仅有50%的持有率。在这一关键市场中，这并不是一个好兆头。2013年以来，苹果公司在中国的收益几乎翻了一番，2016年，达到485亿美元。在某种程度上，这得益于大陆的应用商店。从收益上来说，Annie（一家研究型软件公司）认为大陆得苹果应用商店是全球最大的。在今年的第一季度，苹果在中国的业绩与去年相比较下降了14%，销售额连续五个季度下降。一家市场研究公司Canalys估计，苹果在大陆的出货量会在第一季度减少四分之一。