To say that imitations are selling like hot cakes in China is to state the obvious: the country¡¯s capability to copy premium products is close to perfect. In some cases, made-in-China imitations are pushing the originals out of the market.
 |
|
The original Chocolate phone by LG Electronics (left) and the fake a Chinese company released in China before the original hit the market there.
|
 |
|
¡ß Fake products threatening originals
When LG Electronics released its Chocolate phone in the Chinese market in May, copies had already been available for some time. The phone was first released in Korea at the end of November last year, but it took the company three to four months to develop another version to meet customer needs in China. A Chinese company seized the window of opportunity to launch a fake Chocolate phone there first. "Chinese people think it¡¯s LG Electronics that manufactures the fakes,¡± a staffer with the Korean electronics giant said. "We were really surprised to see the imitation Chocolate phone: it was exactly like the real one in design and in the way the touch pad was attached in the front.¡±
Recent online brouhaha over a fake PlayStation phone also shows how much Chinese counterfeit products have evolved. PlayStation Portable or PSP is a portable game player developed by Japan's Sony. There have been rumors that Sony is developing an accessory for PSP to support a mobile phone function, and a Chinese company actually released one that looks like PSP. This led to online rumors that Sony itself had released a PSP phone. What¡¯s more, the fake is selling at around US$650, as expensive as high-end phones by Samsung Electronics or Sony Ericsson, let alone cheap rip-offs.
 |
|
PlayStation Portable by Sony (top) and a fake PSP phone by a Chinese company.
|
|
|
¡ß A thriving industry
Companies here say they can do little about the thriving counterfeit industry in China. Most of the companies involved in the business are very small and hard to crack down on as they work in a cut-and-run way. There are dozens of such businesses in China: they hire highly skilled engineers to make counterfeit products that are virtually as good as the originals within one or two months of their release. Each has a staff of some 20-40 people who copy circuit diagrams once the original is released. That is then handed to a manufacturer, who produces 20,000-30,000 counterfeit units and disappears.
Samsung Electronics smoked out one such organization recently by tracking down the distribution channel on its own and offered their designers a job with the company. The organization had been able to decode circuit diagrams Samsung made. But the designers turned down the offer, saying they can make W100-200 million (US$1=W930) every time they succeed in producing a perfect fake, so there was no incentive to work for Samsung. "Due to the surge in imitation products, we keep new product design and functions highly confidential before release even within the company,¡± a Samsung executive said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
