The Apple brand does not find enough market in Spain, with barely 14% of total sales. Expensive and elitist products are the arguments that move several generations

The anti-Apple Spain they don't know about in Cupertino

photo_camera PHOTO/AFP - Apple CEO, Tim Cook

Apple does not sell enough in Spain. It strives to do so with solutions at the highest level. The kind that the general public neither sees nor appreciates. On 4 May 2021, it published a job offer on its website: Country Manager in Spain. The greatest responsibility of Apple Marketing Iberia S.A., which is the name of its subsidiary based in Carrera de San Jerónimo in Madrid. That job has had four different employees in four years. And that says very little about the American company's strategy in Spain. Everything that happens inside the bitten apple remains within the walls of the spaceship they have as their headquarters in Cupertino (California), but the changes in management positions and product sales leave plenty of room for interpretation.

The position of Apple Country Manager in France was held for 11 years by Bertrand Godinot and Mikael Berrebi has now been there for almost five years; in Germany, Antoine Barre was appointed six years ago; in Italy, Danilo Belloni has held the position for 13 years and Peter Engrob has been in charge in the UK and Ireland for 16 years. Spain is a difficult destination for Apple. The digital culture has always rejected the use of Mac computers, first, and then Apple smartphones. Add to that the fact that marketing does not vary much from one end of the planet to the other, and you find that Apple treats a future customer of its brand in the United States in the same way as one in Spain. It presents a gadget in the same way to a buyer who knows, understands and values the brand as it does to one who sees its devices as unfamiliar, complicated to use and expensive.

PHOTO/AFP

The numbers speak for themselves. It is only fair to take the data from 2019, before the pandemic and the electronic components crisis altered the sales market. The leading brand in mobile phone business in Spain was Samsung with 30%, then Huawei with 20%, Xiaomi was third with 18% and Apple fourth with 14% of total sales. The American company does not lead in number of units, but it does lead in the value of these sales. It does not deliver as many handsets, but they are significantly more expensive than the competition.

iOS doesn't like it either

If we analyse the total number of users, Apple once again loses out in Spain. The Android operating system reaches 90.9%. As for iOS, the iPhone operating system, the share in 2019 was 8.9%. Although the iPhone is its fetish product, Mac sales are also increasing in general terms due to the pandemic and teleworking, something that is also noticeable in Spain.

The problem goes deeper. Apple wants to mend the rift by bringing in visionaries from other companies to fill the very long profile of its job offer. But they are unable to see the other side. Knowing the market, the potential customer and how to get them to move into their ecosystem. That would mean breaking their marketing and advertising schemes in the bull's skin. It would have to put aside its ingenious slogans and powerful campaigns to cover the Spanish people's lack of knowledge about its products.

Apple should know that in Spain there is a generation that does not want to know anything about its products. Users with an average age of 50 who took the arrival of Apple in Spain as a product different from Windows, complicated and residual. An American thing. That it was going to leave them out of the market and without added value in their work. They have been dragging this along throughout their lives. They feel comfortable with their PC and its imperfections.

AFP/JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES - El vicepresidente senior de marketing mundial de Apple, Phil Schiller, habla sobre el nuevo iPhone 11 Pro durante un evento especial de Apple el 10 de septiembre de 201

The profile of a 65-year-old in Spain is a person who has a mobile phone with Android. This person usually needs the help of children or grandchildren to send whatsapps or take photos. Their mobile screen is full of strange apps that they have downloaded by mistake or apps specific to the brand. The few tasks he does get buried, become slow and he loses the desire to continue using his mobile. If you talk to him about an iPhone, he rejects it out of hand, because it's expensive and he doesn't need so much technology. Actually, he does. A good mobile phone that is capable of covering their needs, that stores thousands of photos, that doesn't lose agility... that makes their life easier and not more difficult. Changing that mentality is the key.

When the era of smartphones arrived, it came with Apple's iPhone. Spain received the 3GS with reluctance because of its high price, which amounted to 500 euros, even though the telephone companies subsidised part of the cost.

It was precisely this business of the telephone companies that drove Spaniards even further away from Apple. The price of their devices was around 1,000 euros, and the subsidies put it in the same range as any Android model, which, in turn, also had discounts that made it even easier to buy. The product's merits have never been valued, and its features were and are a question of economic culture.

Los nuevos modelos de Ipad Air.
Social complex

Apple computers have suffered a similar situation in Spain. The MacBook, MacBook Air, iMac or Mac Mini have been the object of repudiation, because they were seen as expensive and morally superior. This is yet another complex of Spanish society, which singles out those who succeed in business and reproaches them for what they earn, instead of rejoicing in creating wealth for the country. It is true that there is a generation that has broken the stigmas and buys an Apple product because it likes it, finds it comfortable, useful, values its properties or its qualities, or simply wants to show off Apple. It is also true that this generation has the highest unemployment rate in Europe and their salaries are less than a thousand dollars.

If Apple wants to sell more products in Spain, it has to convince Spaniards that its 1,000-euro iPhone is better than the 600-euro Samsung. It should bring out the heavy artillery to create new followers. Real arguments and not a cheap iPhone to see if young people will take the bait and stay.

Apple needs to know that Spain is different.

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