亞洲爲何長不出"蘋果"這棵"參天大草"?

Soon after Apple launched its larger-screen iPhones last week, rivals in Asia sent mocking messages on Twitter, taunting it for being slow to catch up with the industry trend.

蘋果(Apple)上週推出其大屏iPhone之後不久，亞洲對手們便在Twitter上發言取笑，嘲諷蘋果在捕捉行業趨勢上慢半拍。

“No one is going to buy a big phone,” Samsung Electronics teased, quoting a 2010 remark by Steve Jobs, Apple’s late co-founder. “Guess who surprised themselves and changed their minds?”

“永遠沒有人會去買大屏手機，”三星(Samsung Electronics)援引已故蘋果聯合創始人史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs) 2010年的話嘲笑道，“看看是誰出爾反爾，改變了主意？”

From Taipei and Tokyo, smartphone rivals HTC and Sony sent out similarly irreverent tweets.

在臺北和東京，與蘋果競爭的智能手機廠家宏達電(HTC)和索尼(Sony)也在Twitter上發出類似的不敬之辭。

The light-hearted tone of the messages concealed a serious headache for Apple’s Asian competitors. While they have often moved into new product areas such as large-screen phones, smartwatches and payment technology before the US tech group, they have consistently been unable to match the excitement generated by Apple product launches – or its success in monetising and globalising their usage.

這些言論的輕鬆語氣背後，隱藏着蘋果的亞洲競爭對手們一個極其頭疼的問題。儘管它們經常搶在這家美國科技集團前面進入新的產品領域，比如大屏手機、智能手錶和支付技術，但它們一直無法引起像蘋果產品發佈那種程度的興奮情緒，在創收和行銷全球方面也未能取得蘋果那樣的成功。

The latest iterations of the iPhone have larger screens, taking Apple into the “phablet” territory pioneered by Samsung, which launched the fourth version of its Galaxy Note this month .

最新推出的大屏iPhone，把蘋果帶入了由三星開創的“平板手機”領域。三星本月發佈了第4代Galaxy Note。

“When the Note was announced, I couldn’t understand it,” said Ben Wood at the research group CCS Insight, referring to the 2011 launch of Samsung’s first phablet. “It looked ridiculous. And now it’s become a legitimate category.”

“當初Galaxy Note宣佈上市時，我根本不能理解它，”研究集團CCS Insight的本•伍德(Ben Wood)在評論2011年三星發佈首款平板手機時表示，“它看起來很可笑。現在它成了一個正經的品類。”

Samsung would not reveal how many it has sold, but said it shipped 10m units of the previous model in the first two months after its launch last year.

三星不願披露Galaxy Note銷量有多大，但表示，上一代Note在去年推出後，頭兩個月的發貨量達到1000萬部。

Still, analysts believe that Apple’s lead in branding – despite Samsung’s marketing spending, which reached $14bn last year – will eat into the Korean group’s first-mover advantage. “Consumers have an incredible emotional engagement with the Apple brand,” said Mr Wood. “Samsung hasn’t achieved that.”

話雖如此，分析師認爲，儘管三星去年營銷支出達140億美元，但蘋果在品牌操作上的領導地位將削弱這家韓國集團的先發優勢。“消費者對於蘋果品牌有一種令人難以置信的情感投入，”伍德說，“三星還做不到這一點。”

If Samsung’s advertising has at least helped it narrow the popularity gap with Apple, Taiwan’s HTC shows the challenges facing smaller producers seeking to compete at the market’s high end.

如果說三星的廣告起碼幫它在人氣上縮小了與蘋果的差距，那麼臺灣宏達電的境況彰顯了中小廠商在高端市場競爭時面臨的種種挑戰。

While its One series of phones have been praised by some as the most attractively designed smartphone, the lack of marketing clout to support it has left the company floundering. HTC is predicting a 12th consecutive quarter of declining revenues in the third quarter of this year.

儘管宏達電One系列手機被有些人譽爲最具設計魅力的智能手機，但支撐增長的營銷實力不足，導致該公司苦苦掙扎。宏達電預計，今年第3季度營收將連續第12個季度下滑。

The smartwatch sector reveals a similar story. Samsung is the leader by volume sales, having released five models since the first Galaxy Gear was unveiled a year ago. The company “is ahead on technology”, said Mark Newman, analyst at Bernstein, arguing that the group has “positioned itself well for the next decade of growth” in wearable electronics. Its South Korean rival LG Electronics launched its G Watch in July with an improved version to follow this year. Yet neither of these launches came close to matching the hype around the Apple Watch. “Apple understands the watch business better than Samsung,” said Daniel Kim, an analyst at Macquarie, noting Apple’s poaching of executives from the fashion industry such as Angela Ahrendts from Burberry. “Samsung’s smartwatches look ugly and there is a lack of useful apps.”

智能手錶領域也呈現出類似情形。三星是銷量的領先者，自從去年推出第一款Galaxy Gear之後，又發佈了5款產品。伯恩斯坦(Bernstein Research)分析師馬克•紐曼(Mark Newman)表示，該公司“在技術上走在前面”。他認爲，這家集團“面向未來10年可穿戴設備業務的增長處於有利地位”。三星的韓國對手LG電子(LG Electronics)於7月推出了G Watch，今年還將推出改進款。但是，這些產品的發佈都比不上圍繞Apple Watch的大肆炒作。“蘋果比三星更懂手錶業務，”麥格理(Macquarie)分析師丹尼爾•金姆(Daniel Kim)說。他提到，蘋果從時尚業挖來一些高官，比如博柏利(Burberry)的安傑拉•阿倫茨(Angela Ahrendts)。他說，“三星智能手錶很難看，有用的應用也不多。”

Corporate Japan abounds with innovations that failed to become global hits. The Japanese call this “Galápagos syndrome”, whereby groups forge into new technological territory but fail to find a market abroad, only­ for foreign rivals to take the idea global.

日本企業推出的創新產品非常多，但大多未能在全球打響。日本人把這一現象稱爲“加拉帕戈斯羣島綜合徵”(Galapagos syndrome)，指企業集團進入了新技術領域，但未能在國外開闢出相應市場，結果是讓外國競爭借鑑創意，推出全球搶手的產品。

In 1999, Kyocera launched the world’s first mobile phone with a built-in camera and sparked the cameraphone boom in Japan, years before it became commonplace elsewhere. In 2004 Sony came out with an ebook reader three years before Amazon’s Kindle, but lost out because of higher prices and a narrower range. The company also launched a smartwatch in 2010.

1999年，京瓷(Kyocera)推出了全球首款內置攝像頭的手機，在日本引爆照相手機熱潮，多年之後照相手機纔在世界其他地區成爲潮流。2004年，索尼亞推出了一款電子書閱讀器，比亞馬遜(Amazon)的Kindle早三年，但最終因爲價格高、選擇少而落敗。索尼在2010年還推出過一款智能手錶。

Analysts said that Japanese companies are often content with being the first to market the latest technology but are less successful at showing consumers how those technologies will make their lives easier. “The obsession with technology overlooks what is really needed to convince the consumer to buy: the ease to use. And that’s what Apple has capitalised on,” said Atul Goyal, analyst at Jefferies.

分析師們表示，日本企業經常滿足於搶先把最新科技推向市場，但不太擅長向消費者展示這些科技如何能夠爲他們的生活提供便利。傑富瑞(Jefferies)分析師阿圖爾•戈亞爾(Atul Goyal)表示，“它們醉心於技術，而忽略了勸服消費者購買所需的因素：易用性。蘋果正是利用了這一點。”

Mobile payments are the latest example. Ten years ago, NTT DoCoMo introduced phones dubbed osaifu-keitai, or mobile wallets, running on Sony’s FeliCa technology, an early form of the near-field communication technology that will be used by Apple Pay. Nearly half of Japan’s mobile phone owners use FeliCa.

最新的例子是手機支付。10年前，NTT DoCoMo便推出了具有“手機錢包”(osaifu-keitai)功能的手機。手機錢包所依賴的索尼FeliCa卡技術，是近場通信(NFC)技術的一種早期版本，NFC技術如今也將應用到Apple Pay上。在日本，將近一半的手機用戶使用FeliCa卡。

Yet NTT DoCoMo and Sony have struggled to export the concept of using mobile phones as wallets. Only in Hong Kong, where FeliCa chips were used to create Octopus smart cards in 1997 and for mobile payments from last year, has it had success.

不過，NTT DoCoMo和索尼一直沒能把“手機錢包”的理念輸出到國外。只是在香港，FeliCa芯片於1997年被用於創建八達通卡(Octopus)，從去年開始用於手機支付。

“We went in too early and the environment wasn’t ripe,” said an executive at FeliCa Networks this year.

FeliCa Networks一名高管今年表示，“我們進入得太早，而當時環境並不成熟。”

Critics say Japanese companies focus too much on perfecting their technologies in their home market, leading to a system or standard unique to Japan. In the US and Europe, Sony was unable to convince carriers, transport operators and others to adopt FeliCa since those markets used differing types of contactless pay technology.

批評者表示，日本企業太過關注於在本國市場完善自己的技術，導致了一種僅適合日本的制式或標準。在美國和歐洲，索尼沒辦法說服運營商、運輸經營企業和其他公司採用FeliCa，因爲歐美市場使用的是不同類型的非接觸式支付技術。

Yasutoshi Kikuchi, partner at Roland Berger, the consultants, added that Sony needs to shift away from gadget-making and focus on where it can generate revenue. Apple’s success, for example, stems from its ability to tap into existing users by offering not only new devices but added services such as the iTunes store.

諮詢公司羅蘭貝格(Roland Berger)合夥人Yasutoshi Kikuchi補充道，索尼需要超越設備製造，轉而專注於能夠產生營收的領域。例如，蘋果的成功，源於其有能力在推出新產品的同時提供iTunes store等附加服務，充分利用現有的用戶羣體創收。

In the same way, Sony is trying to build the PlayStation gaming console into a subscription-based platform, bringing together users of various gadgets from mobile phones, televisions, tablets to portable game players with wide-ranging offerings from games and movies to live TV programmes.

同樣地，索尼正努力把PlayStation遊戲機打造爲一個訂購平臺，以便匯聚廣泛的產品與服務（從遊戲、電影，到實況電視節目），面向各種設備（手機、電視機、平板電腦和掌上游戲機）的用戶。