Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-out-of-gold-iphone-5s-because-asia-likes-gold-2013-9

by shandip • 13 years ago

21 57 13 years ago

eugeneross• 13 years ago

It always seems Apple has a problem with color production. Don't quote me on it, but wasn't the white iPhone 4 that was different in color and had a weird yellowish tint to some of the early models? It seems that they have quality down, as of now. It's just a matter of quantity by the looks of it.

adestefan• 13 years ago

Supposedly there were production problems that came up when the white iPhones were released. It was a couple months until that all ironed out.

twistedpair• 13 years ago

Nailed it. I knew this was yet another Asian play by Apple. The iPhone is getting long in the tooth in Western markets, but there are still many virgin markets in the East.

seanmcdirmid• 13 years ago

Really? Because like every other person has an iPhone here in Beijing. I saw a gold one on a flight last night from Singapore, I think this is purely a Chinese thing; weird that they said Asian and not Chinese.

melange• 13 years ago

Funny how a long in the tooth phone has taken more than 1% of the US market in 2 days and is the fastest selling phone in history by a huge margin:

https://mobile.twitter.com/asymco/status/382147503644098561

solvemenow• 13 years ago

Maybe its a marketing thing. I remember the same thing used to happen with white iPhones. They would run out way faster than the black ones.

mjs7231• 13 years ago

Apple ran out of gold iPhones in our Natick, MA store because they only had eight to begin with! I heard that from two different sales reps at the store.

kamjam• 13 years ago

I would really be surprised if they underestimated the demand, Asia is known for loving gold. I would bet more likely it is a marketing thing, the news that they have all sold out pushes up demand even further and also hits all the headlines. How many people are going around now saying "I have one of the new gold iPhones" to all their friends and colleagues.

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

If gold hadn't sold out, it would have been a failure. The only function of the gold iPhone is to be hard to get, if it were common as mud, it'd be seen as the bedazzled tacky fashion-gadget shit it is.

glhaynes• 13 years ago

I bet you gold isn't going to stay hard to get (harder to get than any other 5s, at least) for very long at all.

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

Not for too much longer than it takes for the new iPhone to come out, I think.

acchow• 13 years ago

They call it "gold" because Asia likes gold. But I saw the gold 5S in the store and it is definitely not gold. It is a beautiful, classy champagne color. If I were buying one, I'd definitely pick "gold".

mikeash13• 13 years ago

The pervasive casual racism when discussing the gold iPhone is just astounding. If news outlets were talking about black people this way, there would be riots in the streets. Why is this considered acceptable?

lnanek2• 13 years ago

What exactly is racist about saying one product type appeals to a certain set of cultures more than others? It is well known the Korean culture values extra settings and controls as a sign of status, for example, and that Koreans value replaceable batteries more and carry them around more often. Is it racist to say replaceable battery phones sell better in Korea than elsewhere? There are already OEMs that make different SKUs for exactly this reason, like LG.

mikeash13• 13 years ago

It's not racist if it's backed up by data.

So far I have seen no data whatsoever to back up this idea that Asian people prefer gold more than other people in the world.

Articles like these simply take a racial stereotype and run with it to the conclusion they want to reach. That's racist.

simonh2• 13 years ago

Oh, please grow up(1).

What specifically in this article are you calling out as casually racist? Was Mr. Lian, who is quoted as saying "Chinese people like Gold" being racist about his own race? My wife has said much the same thing to me. She's Chinese, though now a naturalised Brit.

(1) I apologies to my esteemed HNers for that, but it seems appropriate and if I take a karma hit for it, so be it. It was worth it.

mikeash13• 13 years ago

This article takes a racial stereotype (Asians love gold!) ignores confounding factors (turns out, lots of people like gold, even non-Asians!) trots out a token Asian (some of my best friends are black!) and produces no evidence whatsoever to support its claims.

In fact, the article itself basically admits that the entire premise is full of shit:

"...gold in Asia is perhaps even more fetishized than in the West."

"Perhaps". This entire article, this entire kind of article, is based on a wild guess. Yet this doesn't stop everybody from running with the "Asians love gold!" theme.

Probably two thirds of the people in the iPhone line I was in wanted gold. Yet I don't see any articles saying "Americans love gold!"

Writing crazy and uninformed articles about faraway people while ignoring similar behavior at home? Yep, that's racist.

jerf• 13 years ago

Are you speaking in general, or accusing this article in particular of having racism in it?

skyebook• 13 years ago

I'd argue the title is probably the worst part because singling out a demographic without mentioning that they're talking about said demographic while using bizarre phrasing makes it sound almost laughable. In writing a piss-poor title it just sounds like someone not giving due-respect to X billion people. By the way, Asia likes gold? Continents can like things now? I need to read more on plate tectonics.

the_watcher7• 13 years ago

"People in Asia like gold a lot, as evidenced by the demand for the gold iPhone 5S." What about this is racist? Or is looking at data based on location now racist?

mikeash13• 13 years ago

Demand for gold is high everywhere. I've yet to see any evidence whatsoever that demand or preference for gold is higher in Asia than in the rest of the world. Yet everybody runs with it because "Asians like gold!" as if that's somehow different than anyone else.

medecau• 13 years ago

http://imgur.com/75VQJ2K

josefresco• 13 years ago

Watched something on TV a while back on how ingrained gold is in the Indian culture. I don't have any links handy to back up my claims, but I think India accounts for a majority of the gold market worldwide.

Edit: Quickly searching I found this: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57376057/indias-love-a...

ihsw2• 13 years ago

It has little to do with the color gold and more to do with the social status.

Money spent on home appliance is minimal and an after-thought, and this is because you cannot impress people with your home appliances while you're out of your home. Meanwhile you can flash your Gold iPhone everywhere you go and it implicitly shows everybody around you that you can afford a Gold iPhone.

Social posturing is a central part of East Asian cultures and the Gold iPhone appeals directly to that mindset. There is no racism but instead it's just the reality of the situation -- hubris is ingrained and prevalent.

pavel_lishin• 13 years ago

Isn't that prevalent everywhere? Some cultures show off gold, others show off cars and their accessories, others show off the latest tech toys.

"Look at me, I have so much income, I can afford to spend it frivolously!"

ihsw2• 13 years ago

It's especially prevalent in China. Their one child per family policy has created an entire generation of people with too much money, so extravagance and opulence are approaching and exceeding interesting levels of absurdity.

akamaka• 13 years ago

Or, more simply, Apple ran out of gold phones because they were rightfully cautious about over-producing an untested color. Just like the first all-white iPhone, there's no rush prioritize the new color while proven ones are already selling as fast as they can be made. Of course, this doesn't make for good link bait.

Is the article racist? Yes, a bit. Only long-term sales data will reliably tell us which colors are preferred in which markets. Right or wrong, the article is rushing to judgement based on flimsy racial stereotypes.

the_watcher7• 13 years ago

I don't think the article is racist. Just poorly sourced. It's rushing to judgement based on anecdotes (which are probably rooted in a bit of stereotyping - just in the case, there is some data backing up the stereotype). This comment has a good round-up of evidence that gold is more popular in Asia than elsewhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6431520.

itsmequinn• 13 years ago

To be fair, the 5th avenue New York store consistently "over-indexes" (as the article puts it) with shoppers of Asian heritage. Until recently at least, it was not very easy to buy an iPhone of any type in many Asian countries, and as a result, many tourists on vacation to the US would buy multiple devices to take home. Even now many Asian countries are among the last to have new Apple products roll out to them. Certainly don't have data to back this up, but I lived in New York for 6 years and took more than the occasional trip to the Apple store and witnessed these types of bulk purchases. Point is, even the "data" this article introduces doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gold.

btbuildem• 13 years ago

Sounds like Apple needs to jack the price on the 5S..

Apple Ran Out Of Gold iPhones Because It Underestimated How Much Asia Likes Gold

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