On September 30,2015, Apple Music launches in China with discount price.
I just read an article titled “Apple music faces tough audience in China?”,which analyses the difficulties for this company to enter China’s market. Firstly, customers in China prefer local companies. Compared with several local companies with good reputation and customer loyalty, Apple music is somewhat a late entrant in this competition. (As the chart below shows, Kugou and QQ Music already occupied more than 50% of the local market.)
(https://atlas.qz.com/charts/N1Ukg4DY)
Secondly intellectual property issue in China is a serious problem. The truth is customers in China have already got used to download music for free, though new government regulations made some improvements on protecting intellectual property, customers still need some time to adapt themselves to truth of no more free-music.
However, I think launching China’s market isn’t a bad idea for Apple Music because China has the largest smartphone market and iPhone is significant successful there. So Apple’s strong band recognition will attract a large number of users. Just as this article has mentioned, “Customers in China love the App Store and have made it the largest market in the world for app downloads”. Besides that, I noticed that Apple Music made some innovations to fit China’s market so I personally believe that Apple Music can launch China successfully. For example, the pricing of the Apple Music service ($1.57 a month) is significantly below the U.S. Since customers in China are very sensitive at price, Apple Music’s low price will drive more users to get access to this service. Meanwhile, Apple Music made a wise strategy–launching Apple Music both on iOS and Android . Since Android phones are popular in China, this strategy will bring more potential demands for this company.
As for me, I like the news that Apple Music is available in China no because I prefer Apple Music’s design style and it is simple to use. On the other hand, I have to say Apple Music has competitive price in China. So once I come back to China, I will download Apple Music definitely.
resources: Apple Music faces tough audience in China by Leslie Shaffer <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/30/apple-music-heads-to-mainland-china.html>