Despite a blitz of advertising and promotions, consumers across the globe are choosing Apple products during the run up to Christmas. After interviewing more than seventy shoppers in ten cities, Reuters reports consumers are not swayed either by Wall Street concerns or Madison Avenue come-ons. Instead, in shopping malls in the US, Europe and Asia, the key is Apple’s simplicity.
Samsung – Apple’s chief rival – is gaining no converts in shopping malls. Only in Singapore and Bangalore, India did Reuters find consumers picking Samsung products over the iPhone or iPad. In Mexico, despite having a mall covered with ads and displays promoting the South Korean firm’s products, the iPad mini is selling like hotcakes…
In a Boston mall, Reuters found nine visits to the Apple Store compared to one for the Microsoft store. In a poll commissioned by the news service, 42 percent of respondents said they “were leaning toward an iPad or an iPad mini”.
Just sixteen percent want a Kindle, with fourteen percent expressing a preference for the Samsung Galaxy.
Where was the Microsoft Surface?
A robust fourt percent of the survey said they have the Surface on their shopping list.
According to the findings, via Reuters:
Customers cited existing iTunes music and video libraries, plus the traditional Apple virtues of simplicity and ease of use as reasons to stick with the iPhone and the iPad.
And according to a survey of US households with broadband access published Thursday by Parks Associates (via Fortune), 44 percent of tablet shoppers plan to buy an iPad versus 24 percent for Kindle Fire as interest in the Surface fell 53 percent after its price was announced.
Back to Reuters, which shares a few buyers’ stories.
A shopper in Palo Alto, California said his 77-year-old non-English speaking Persian grandmother learned to use the iPhone. In Paris, a 62-year-old photography went to the mall looking to replace his stolen iPad with the Samsung Galaxy – but still felt he’d likely buy another iPad.
In Boston, a 40-year-old man returned his Microsoft Surface for an iPad.
“With the iPad, it’s one step, and with this (Surface), it’s two or three steps to do the same thing,” he told the news gathering organization.
How well is the Surface selling in Microsoft’s home town of Seattle?
When asked if the store had 32GB or G4GB Surface units in stock, “We got plenty of both!,” an assistant laughingly told the news agency.
Here’s a nice Apple Store versus Microsoft Store photo taken at Century City Mall in Los Angeles, California on, December 11, 2012, at 3:30pm.
Photo: Howard Kaplan, via Fortune. You can write your own caption.
So, if Apple is dominating sales, where are Android fans going?
According to Reuters, Android handsets are replacing Nokia devices in tech-heavy Bangalore. But even there, they want an iPhone or iPad, despite what one local shopper called the ‘Apple premium’, also known as the oft-overused ‘Apple tax‘.
Still, what about the increasing competition Apple is facing – you know, the fact that the iPad will go from over half of the tablet market to just half by 2016 (or displace the notebook by then, depending on whom you ask)?
Or, what about Apple stock losing so much ground, recently?
Shoppers aren’t listening, what with the noise of those cash registers ringing up iPhone and iPad orders.