Yusuf Goolamabbas

Hong Kong currently has one operational 3G network run by Hutchinson .
In the coming months, rollouts will occur from the other 3 operators Sunday ,
Smartone , and CSL

Hong Kong has a mobile subscriber penetration of 117 % . I think this has to be a world record

Now, Apple has always maintained that its Quicktime technologies is very well suited for 3G networks. However, Quicktime is not listed as an option in the webcasts offered by the Hong Kong SAR Government

These webcasts are only in Real Media and Windows Media player format. I was speaking with someone recently who setup a streaming media system for another government dept where they used Windows Media and asked him why not Quicktime and he said that he hadn’t heard about it.

In my opinion, Apple should evangalize Quicktime streaming more strongly in HongKong, the demographics of the population is such that they are receptive of cool technology, there is a fairly sizable music/entertainment industry (John Woo,Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Maggie Chueng just to name a few) here to provide content and the government itself promotes streaming media (albeit not Quicktime at the moment).

With the potential increase in 3G subscribers, I feel that Apple has the unique position of gaining substantial mindshare amongst the mobile phone/PDA user segment which may increase Apple’s market share in desktop. I guess it would also help if Apple Hong Kong provided discount to students similar to the Apple Education store in the US but that’s something for another day.