Ferrari has had a rough ride in China lately.

In April, a the mysterious crash of a Ferrari in Beijing that killed its driver and injured two female passengers led to massive rumormongering after authorities censored all social media mentions about the brand (法拉利).

Then, just when Ferrari probably thought it had moved on to a better place, the brand is now taking flack for an incident in Nanjing that resulted in the desecration of the city's ancient wall.Continue reading...

"If you don't have one, you're a loser."

So reads the English-language copy at the bottom of a poster in the window of an Apple "authorized reseller" on Hongmei Road in Shanghai. To Americans, it's another funny bit of long-in-translation Chinglish. But, increasingly, it's a bit of dead serious marketplace analysis in China. When the brand's history is written, the week that it announced sales numbers in China that Apple's CEO called "mind-boggling" may be remembered as the moment Apple's future moved from the West to the East. 

Indeed, a Bloomberg report found that everyone in China from "teachers to furniture makers" were snapping up iPhones because, as a Beijing teacher put it, "A lot of people in my office use it and said I should get one, so I did." But it's beyond the gainfully employed. Even low-earning migrant workers in Shanghai want an iPhone, and demand it by brand name.

In a (legitimate) massage shop not far from the Hongmei Apple "authorized reseller" where an hour-long foot massage can be had for 46 yuan (about $7.60), a masseuse quizzes me about my iPhone. He says he would love to have one. He arrived in Shanghai three years ago from Shaolin (the city famous for kung fu), and has no plans to go back because, he says, "The jobs pay nothing and are all hard."Continue reading...

Kohler was a brand caught squarely in the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble a few years ago. But it's only because of that debacle that the Wisconsin-based maker of bathroom fixtures now is busy supplying a still-promising boom in demand for its most expensive toilets by upper-middle-income consumers in China.

The century-old company made porcelain, mainly in Wisconsin, and became a multi-billion-dollar brand by supplying it for homes and businesses as the American building boom continued from after World War II to a few years ago. Along the way, the family that owned the privately held company was able to build up a five-star resort in its hometown, an elaborate "toilet museum" nearby, and world-class golf courses such as Whistling Straits, on the banks of Lake Michigan several miles a way.

But Kohler sales fell from about $5.5 billion in 2008 to about $5 billion last year largely because of the U.S. housing bust, forcing a cut in the Wisconsin manufacturing workforce to about 1,800 people from about 2,700 people. And that's where the silver lining comes in.Continue reading...

It kind of just rolls off the tongue: "Faux Bordeaux." But the actual words rolling off the tongues of winemakers dealing with the spike in wine knock-offs coming out of China these days cannot be printed.

As the nation's taste for wine explodes, so do opportunities for marketing knock-offs. Aside from the occasional heath threats of poorly-made batches, the growth of the counterfeit wine business threatens to choke the growth of an entire industry. What's more, the phenomenon again illustrates why a current nationwide drive to strengthen "homegrown" Chinese brands could be a bust.Continue reading...

去他媽的人大代表!

That is the reaction of one Chinese Weibo user to photos of government officials arriving for the annual “two sessions” of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and National People’s Congress. His NSFT (not safe for translation) assessment stemmed from the fact that numerous of the "people's" leaders showed up with luxury brand-name handbags, some costing more than the average citizen's annual salary.

The outrage is notable for a number of reasons, from just how well-known luxury brands have become to just how much those luxury brands expose what the "Communist" nation is all about.Continue reading...

"Linsanity" the hottest shanzhai in China and factories work overtime knocking off the Knick. The report is all in Chinese so to translate: "This stuff is ALL fake."

And as Apple reveals its 3rd generation iPad today, in iPad trademark news, Apple may have scored a break as lawsuit grinds to halt with Chinese opponent Proview facing bankruptcy liquidation. Airfreight companies are bracing for iPad 3 shipments from China, while China Mobile boasts 15 million iPhone customers — even though it can't legally sell the iPhone in China, which has passed one billion mobile phone benchmark. Apple's standoff with copyright infringement and Chinese writers, meanwhile, continues.

Victoria's Secret fashion gets knocked off in Chengdu.

The latest luxury automaker to turn to China: Bentley sales rise 66 percent in China.Continue reading...

Sucker for moving ads? Tencent goes emotional with "Brothers?" spot, above.

This is what iPad trademark holder Proview's "iPad" looks like. Which is maybe why a Shanghai court has ordered that Proview stop forcing Apple iPads from China shelves, pending the new case — which Proview says it's eager to get behind it and move on and Apple is red-cheeked as new details emerge. Chinese officials have found a new Apple-branded product to yank from shelves: counterfeit stoves.

Also: Missed our look at Apple's iPad China woes? Here it is. Below, more China bites from Coke, Red Bull, Ford, Lamborghini and others.Continue reading...

In the ongoing news of worker abuse and suicide at Apple's top eight suppliers in China, with Foxconn Technology Group's factories most prominent in the glaring international spotlight, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) has begun its on-site inspections of conditions at factories at Apple's behest, and the initial reports are better than expected.

"The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm," commented Auret van Heerden, president of the FLA, after visiting two Foxconn factories in Shenzhen in southern China and another plant in the central city of Chengdu with a contingent of 30 FLA inspectors. "I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory. So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. It's more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps."Continue reading...