ZOMG! Breaking news: Apple has announced the iPhone 3G will be officially launched in Taiwan this year (please note my intended sarcasm). What's the problem, you ask? Aren't you a huge Apple fan just salivating over the availability of legit iPhones? Yes and no.

As with the Nintendo Wii (see this blog a few months back), the iPhone 3G has been available in Taiwan since virtually its day of launch in the US. We have a screamingly robust gray market here (as does nearly every Asian country). And as with the Wii before, most of my friends who already want one have a Hong Kong-purchased model or an iPhone from the US or New Zealand purchased in Taipei (unlocked, of course). Now, my friends and acquaintances are not representative of the whole nation of Taiwan, but they are not a bad sample group--they are well-off, professional, trendsetting, younger and usually overseas educated. This sounds like it would be the ideal target market for the iPhones to be sold by Chunghwa Telecom Co (¤¤µØ¹q«H), reportedly by the end of the year.

There is still a HUGE market for off-brand iPods and for HTC iPhone clones. But due, of course, to pricing, real pods and phones are in the hands of exactly the demographic mentioned. This would seem to be even more true in a sinking global and local economy and countries like Taiwan where people are really reducing spending on pricey electronics, etc.

So what does all this mean? Some good market buzz for the iPhone 3G launch. Perhaps we'll see some local apps and hacks for this official model. Surely there will be some uptick in sales, especially if prices are lower than the current approximately US$900 on the gray market. But all in all, I don't think this will be a major lasting market sensation in Taiwan.

This place is pretty small anyway and, as seen with the BlackBerry before (operator Taiwan Mobile had trouble unloading the 5,000 it was required to purchase), not every high-end US brand device flies off the shelves on a fickle island. This is part of the reason this took too long, as sources say Chunghwa was scared and the deal took a while to close due to pricing, etc. One would guess neither Apple nor Chunghwa is expecting much aside from a little buzz and glamor, which I'm sure is the sum total of what they'll get.

More to come.
--jag

 

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