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Stephen Chen

A shadowy company from Shenzhen has opened four stores in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan  province, since May, and offers the latest Apple products to thousands of customers a day.
But while these 'Apple Stores' look official, they are anything but.
Every detail has been painstakingly worked out to impress visitors, creating the look and feel of an authorised Apple Store, from interior decor to device displays to staff  T-shirts. 
'Apple Store' is written in English everywhere - on banners, glass windows and the wall - and it features Apple's trademark aluminium-coloured logo.
A Westerner living in Kunming took snapshots of the shops and posted them on her blog on Wednesday, making them yet another example of rampant fakery on the mainland, where production of bogus goods is widespread. 
One of these 'Apple Stores' is on Zhengyi Lu, or the Road of Justice, in Kunming. It features a  black overhead banner with a shiny Apple logo large enough to be spotted a block away. 
Two lines of subtitles can be seen under the logo. In Chinese it says, 'Apple Retailing Shop'; in English, 'Apple Store'.
Wood tables and stone flooring greet customers, the same decor used by Apple since it opened its first US Apple Store in 2001. A spiral staircase with stainless steel handrails leads customers to the second floor.
Customers can buy almost anything relating to Apple here, from the latest 27-inch iMac to the most exotic adapter. On a wall filled with racks of accessories, there may be more choices than at the official Apple Store in Sanlitun, Beijing.
Staff wearing blue T-shirts bearing Apple's logo walk briskly and recite precise specifications when asked. They only stop smiling when asked whether their shop is the real deal.
'Our products are real, our prices are official prices and our service is of the highest standards,' said an employee wearing a name tag with Apple's logo but no name on it. 'The intent of our decorations is to give our customers the best shopping experience. It isn't cheating.'
In another such 'Apple Store' that opened on Monday along Beijing Road in Kunming, the shop manager said the company's headquarters was in Shenzhen but he was not authorised to reveal its name.
The development of these stores  surprised, angered and frightened legitimate Apple distributors.
Liu Zongkun, shop manager at an official Apple outlet at the Wangfujing Department Store  in Kunming, said she has  visited the fake Apple Stores often since the first one opened in May.
She was shocked by their similarity to real Apple Stores and was worried about losing customers. Her shop is much smaller and features fewer choices at higher prices.
'Our only advantage is that we are legitimate, and they are not. But so far that advantage has not been of much use in practice,' she said.
A major Apple distributor in Kunming told the Yunnan Information Daily that it had sent photos and complaints to the Apple headquarters in Beijing, but was disappointed not to have received any reply.
A Beijing-based spokesman for Apple said yesterday: 'Apple has no official statement on this.'
Records kept by the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce showed that Apple tried to register 'Apple Store' as a trademark for computer retailing business in 2006, but it was turned down. In 2008, Apple was able to register 'Apple Store' as a trademark for computer maintenance, installation and repairs.
Zhang Honglei, a lawyer specialising in intellectual property rights protection with the Yunnan Zhenxu Law Firm, said he didn't believe that Apple would file a lawsuit against the Shenzhen company, as Apple was unlikely to win.
Zhang said the authorities rejected Apple's application to trademark 'Apple Store' for good reason. The authorities must have thought that 'apple' was too common, and so was 'store'. A fruit shop might also want to claim 'Apple Store' as a trademark. It would be unfair to others to reserve the name for Apple only.
Without a trademark claim, Apple would have little chance of winning a case against another business calling itself Apple Store.
'Apple can, of course, sue the Shenzhen company for using its logo in an unauthorised way, but it will then face the challenge of suing every other shop using an Apple logo without authorisation, which are everywhere,' Zhang said.
'To be honest, Apple is the biggest winner in the current situation,' Zhang said. 'It has many Chinese companies willing to help it sell products and increase the popularity of its brand for free. Why would Apple sue them? Why would Apple punish them for helping it sell more?'
Apple operates more than 300 Apple Stores worldwide, most of them in the United States. Hong Kong is expected to get its first Apple Store later this year.




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Apple

They look official, but these are bad 'Apple Stores'