Apple Europe boss - success across Europe, concern at iPod nano sales

Jonny Evans
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October 21, 2009
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Apple’s European chief says the company is an agent of disruptive industry change, confirms the company is seeing colossal growth in Europe - and seems a little anxious about iPod nano sales.

Speaking to the Guardian, Pascal Cagni, Apple’s general manager and vice-president, EMEA, came on strong: “We have right now the best ever product line, we keep saying this, and it's fuelled by the fact you have got the portable line where we display growth of 35% year-on-year.”

Cagni confirmed that Europe’s education markets are falling for Apple products, with “immense success all over Europe” in back to school sales.

Not just that, but also in market share the Apple star is shining, he confirmed, “We have typically above 20-25% market share in each of the [European] countries.

Cagni talks a little about Apple’s retail strategy - its online store, own-brand retail stores, premium resellers and high street retailers.

“Our position in the US is at a higher base, penetration of computers is even higher there,” he said, adding, “Last year, in 09, we had more openings outside the US than in the US. Europe is full of potential. And our online stores are seen and recognised as one of the best ecommerce sites for consumer experience.”

On iPod nano sales, he notes, “We believe it [the market] is not doing justice to the [iPod] nano, where for £115 you've got 8GB plus the camera... We renewed the category.”

“Our job is to better carry the message. We need to express it better so that people get convinced of what we do.”

Additional factoids from the report:

-  EU has faster growth than in the US because “penetration of computers is even higher there”.

- The company is about open its 23rd store in the UK.

- iPhone price war?: Orange and Vodafone will start selling the iPhone by early next year along with O2, but Cagni won’t confirm whether that could change the handset’s price, only saying “we don’t dictate the price”.

—No Beatles for sale: “I would love to say yes, but nothing to announce.”

Comments (1)

ratGT (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 9:51am

COMMON, SHAPE UP APPLE & DO WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO DO - UNTIL THEN, ALL THIS IS CR*P-TALK !!!
For the past decades, the worst Apple sales in Europe belongs to Greece. And that's NOT because the Greeks are computer illiterate nor prone only to MS products. It's because up until now, there has NEVER been an official Apple in Greece. Only and 'Authorized Distributor/ Seller'.
What is so bad about this? Well, besides that it's the ONLY country in the EU that there's no Official Apple (not counting in the 'recent' EU members), the company that has been authorized to distribute and service Apple products - Rainbow SA - doesn't do ANY of these two tasks properly (and sometimes not at all !):
- There are ALWAYS latencies in their inconsistent distribution of the Apple products in the market (resellers)
- They charge their own extra 'tax' on Apple products, making Greece one of the most expensive Apple markets in the world, whereas in PC prices are the cheapest in Europe!
- Their service (Rainbow's) is a 'hit or miss' situation: At best they need from weeks up 'till months to service anything from an iPod up to a Mac unit, while most of the times they send them 'abroad' to be serviced, making service-time maybe the slowest in the EU! (That is, IF any Apple product gets serviced, because most of the time they come up with excuses in order to not service them!)
- They don't give A DAMN about retail buyers, while they are TOTALLY focused on volume buyers (companies, music studios, publishers, etc.)
- They NEVER co-operate with Apple on ANYTHING (ex. No equivalent Apple site or Store, only their own old & dreadful version of an Apple site. Also Greek is the only EU language that has been missing from all OS X versions and all they do about it is to bundle the Macs sold in Greece with their own CD that 'patches' OS X with their own basic translation, which of course 'breaks-up' after the next Software Update and turns your OS X incompatible with future updates or most other 3rd-party software)

All the above is just SOME of the negative experiences go through as Mac users living in Greece. After ALL these years of 3rd-world quality user experience, the only light in the horizon was 3 years ago, through an interview of the Apple Europe boss Pascal Cagni, stating that he's aware of the situation in Greece and promised some immediate changes. Of course, NOTHING has changed AT ALL since then!!!.
To finalize my post, news like this one makes us Greek Apple users angrier and even more disappointed, because at the same time that we read about Apple's plans and attempts to equalize the market & their services in Europe on the same level of the US, in Greece, the Apple market is in total chaos & darkness...

UNIFY YOUR NETWORK & SERVICES ACROSS THE WHOLE E.U. AND THEN MAKE ATTEMPTS OF PROGRESS - UNTIL THEN, YOU ONLY MAKE BUILDS UPON 'ILL GROUND' AND REINFORCE INCONSISTENCY & BAD REPUTATION !!!