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Comment by L_Rahman | Hacker News Reader

For most American companies in China, this is true. For Apple it is not.

From Ben Thompson at Stratechery:

This is a very big deal. Feel free to ignore anyone making snarky comments about China’s average monthly wage being the same as the price of an iPhone 5C. The two pertinent facts about China are that:

There is tremendous income disparity There are a TON of people

So while many Western markets may have a greater percentage of the population that can afford an iPhone, the absolute number of Chinese who are potential customers is very high as well.

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Sure, those are facts. But here's another fact: Just because you have a large population doesn't mean your economy is destined for greatness. It doesn't mean you're destined to overtake the U.S and it doesn't mean your destined to evolve, improve or exceed. All it means is that you have a lot of people living in your country (poor people). Will they become middle class? Maybe. But it's most definitely not "certain".

The fact of the matter is that they do have a large population size and that presents its own problems for economic growth, believe it or not. Hell, it presents problems for the long-term stability of the country. Right now China's biggest threat is itself - corruption in China is a pervasive and massive problem (Source: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results). China isn't the only country with a massive population; India has one too. Ben Thompson's facts are also true about India.

What does any of those have anything to do with whether Apple needs China or not? Apple does not care if China is not destined for greatness or to overtake the US or to solve the corruptness problem. They only care if the number of people willing and able to purchase their products does not decrease.

> Feel free to ignore anyone making snarky comments about China’s average monthly wage being the same as the price of an iPhone 5C. The two pertinent facts about China are that:

I've seen plenty of Chinese people whose actual individual monthly wage was almost certainly less than the price of an iPhone; it didn't stop them from having iPhones.

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