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Comment by contracertainty | Hacker News Reader

This is an incredibly silicon valley centered viewpoint. I'm sure the guy makes some good observations, but how can you take anyone seriously that starts with a comment like this? Apple is insignificant outside of the English speaking first world: North America, UK, Aus/NZ. I wish some of these people from those markets would get outside their bubble from time to time. There's a huge market out there that has never used nor wanted an iPhone or any other Apple product.

Not that they are bad, they just aren't all that special.

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> Apple is insignificant outside of the English speaking first world

Japan has a higher share of iOS than the US or UK. Also China is ~20% iOS. Sounds small until you realize that percentage equates to more iOS devices than the US.

Also Switzerland or Sweden have a lot of Apple users. All those countries have one thing in common: everything is very expensive there. So people have a lot of money and they can easily afford Apple products.

In Argentina for example an iPhone is around 2500 USD (100% import tax), an average citizen needs to save for a year to afford an iPhone.

A year?

A couple of years maybe, and you won't be getting the latest gen one.

An average Argentinian office worker should be able to put 2500$ per year aside. If he doesn't need a new washing machine or new furniture, he could get an iPhone. But he would need to spend all his savings just for one thing.

iOS is different from Mac right? There are a lot more phones than Macs in China I believe.

Grandparent post was speaking about Apple generally: "There's a huge market out there that has never used nor wanted an iPhone or any other Apple product."

Yup. The starting price of an apple computer in India is almost 10 times the median salary of a young worker / executive.

You will not fine Macs in India, except in the 1%, or in movies.

I am sure that is true for most of South Asia.

It's Windows all the way down. There is a huge black market for pirated windows copies here and a decade back, the standard PC setup was a basic Intel based system, loaded with pirated windows os on a cd that costs about 2 USD.

I don't think you're using the word "executive" in the way that I usually understand it.

You realize the 1% of India is 15 million people, right?

Thompson lives in Taiwan, I believe.

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