3G iPad 2 Not Feeling the Love in China?

via Sina Tech

Yesterday, the 3G iPad 2 finally launched in China (the wireless version has been here for a while already). We joked yesterday there might be a riot at China’s Apple stores — after all, there was the last time an iPad was launched here — but it looks like there was no need to worry about that. Apple’s 3G iPad seems to have met with a cold reception here.

The photo on the right is of the Apple Store in Beijing yesterday. If you’ve never been there before, this might look crowded to you, but trust us, that’s how it looks on a normal day. Usually when there’s a new product launch, people are lining up out the doors and there are huge crowds pressing in against the shop from all sides. It looks a little like a zombie apocalypse, and if you see it, you know some Apple thing just went on sale in China.

So why isn’t the 3G iPad 2 getting the same treatment? Sina Tech seems eager to suggest that Apple’s magic is gone now that Steve Jobs is out as CEO, but that’s not the reason at all. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why the 3G iPad 2 got the cold shoulder on launch day in China:

• It wasn’t really a product launch. As we pointed out yesterday, Apple hasn’t really been treating this like a new product launch. The 3G iPad 2 wasn’t even a featured product on Apple’s website, nor were there any huge marketing campaigns for it. It seems like the hype machine was switched off for this one, which makes sense because….
• The 3G iPad 2 has actually been out for months. Of course, it wasn’t officially for sale here, but it’s been for sale in other countries for a while now, which means gray-market 3G iPad 2s have been available in China for just as long. Anyone who really wanted the 3G version probably bought a gray-market import long ago.
• It’s too expensive. The 3G version costs more than the wireless one, and 3G plans are also expensive. If you live in the US, you’d probably cry if I told you how little they cost in comparison to your inflated wireless bill, but Chinese consumers are used to paying just a few dollars a month for pay-as-you-go phone service, and the prospect of 3G data packages with steep up-front price tags is not always appealing.
• Not Jailbroken Yet. Some consumers may be avoiding the 3G iPad 2 for a while because they’re concerned the new China version of the device may not be jailbroken yet. A huge number of Chinese Apple users jailbreak their iDevices for use with China Mobile’s network because the devices are only sold officially through China Unicom, which isn’t as popular a wireless provider.

Of course, there are also a bunch of cheaper copycats alternatives now, but personally I don’t think that’s the issue. The iPhone 5 is coming soon — Apple will reportedly unveil the new device on Oct 4 — and I’d be willing to bet quite a bit of money when that hits the streets in China, we’ll see big lines at the Apple Stores again even though there are a number of cheaper competitors.

Apple products, after all, have always been slow to the market and expensive in China. People go nuts for them anyway because the branding is so expertly executed. The products — iPhones, iPads, MacBooks — have become status symbols here, and cheaper alternatives are only going to make them more attractive to large swaths of the Chinese audience. The marketing machine appears to be sitting out the 3G iPad 2 launch here, but you can bet it will be back in full swing by the time the new iPhone drops. If there are still no lines at the Apple Stores then, feel free to blame Tim Cook. But I highly doubt that will be the case.