Apple hires Burberry CEO as SVP of Retail - stratēchery by Ben Thompson

Ben Thompson on Apple’s hire of Burberry CEO. He is absolutely right that these luxury/fashion hirings of late (Apple also hired Yves Saint Laurent’s former CEO) point to the fact that Apple was doubling down on its luxury status in its lack if a low cost iPhone. Of course, the also make the tech press swirl over thoughts of an iWatch, but that will remain to be seen.

One other aspect of this post pairs well with the previous one from Gruber. Ben reminds pundits that even though the average salary in China may look too small to afford the costly unsubsidized iPhone, China is very hard to take on averages alone. Remember that 2% stat and you’ll see there’s still a huge amount of high end in China.