Surface availability in the world - biased or unbiased?

As per this blog post: http://ift.tt/2tJUg1C

and this one: http://ift.tt/2tJYF4C

The surface pro will be available in these 24 markets:

1. Austria (Europe)
2. Australia
3. Belgium (Europe)
4. Canada - North America
5. China - Asia
6. Denmark (Europe)
7. Finland (Europe)
8. France (Europe)
9. Germany (Europe)
10. Hong Kong - Asia
11. Ireland (Europe)
12. Italy (Europe)
13. Luxembourg (Europe)
14. The Netherlands (Europe)
15. New Zealand
16. Norway (Europe)
17. Poland (Europe)
18. Portugal (Europe)
19. Spain (Europe)
20. Sweden (Europe)
21. Switzerland (Europe)
22. Taiwan- Asia
23. UK (Europe) - I mean the continent and not EU
24. USA -North America

So right off we can see this is not a real worldwide release as it is majorly catering to North America, Europe and part of Asia - conspicously missing are South American countries, African countries, and many Asian nations

So I got to thinking, is there some some logic or sense to all this? To the limited availability of Microsoft's best physical device to date?

I started some basic research

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Here's a list of the top 40 economies in the world as per GDP according to IMF:

USA, China, Japan, Germany, UK, France, India, Italy, Brazil, Canada, South Korea, Russia, Australia, Spain, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Taiwan, Sweden, Poland, Belgium, Thailand, Nigeria, Austria, Iran, UAE, Norway, Egypt, Hong Kong, Israel, Denmark, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa and Ireland

Now notice that there are several prominent names in the above list that the surface isn't going to be launching in - I've highlighted them in bold and italics

So surprisingly these markets aren't getting the surface devices - even though economically it would have made sense - and countries like Luxembourg and New Zealand are on the list (possibly by virtue of them being next to country which is getting them)

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Let's try another metric - population - the logic here is that a bigger population means a bigger potential market - so below is the list with the top 40 in terms of population

China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, Mexico, Ethiopia, Philippines, Egypt, Vietnam, Germany, DRC, Turkey, Iran, Thailand, France, UK, Italy, Tanzania, South Africa, Myanmar, South Korea, Colombia, Kenya, Spain, Argentina, Ukraine, Sudan, Uganda, Algeria, Poland, Iraq, Canada, Morocco and Saudi Arabia

Again, some of the countries I highlighted earlier have appeared in this list as well

Now it seems troubling that the countries with a high level of GDP and a high level of population would be off the list of countries that the surface will be selling in. Why is the surface and by extension the other surface products not available in 4 out of 5 BRICS nations? Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa?

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Let's try another metric to make sense of things - fastest economically growing nations
I'm going to exclude some countries since they are too small:

Ethiopia, Nepal, India, Philippines, China, Senegal, Tanzania, Iran, Vietnam, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Rwanda, Mali, Malawi, Ireland, Indonesia, Pakistan, Uganda, Egypt, Algeria, Malaysia, Israel, Luxembourg

Now at least we see why Luxembourg made it to the list - it's one of the fastest growing countries - though it's been beaten by more than 40 others

And again we find that some of the countries highlighted twice before have been highlighted here as well

So it seems folly to not sell the surface and help increase it's reach if it's not being sold in Brazil, India, Russia, Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea and many others

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Why would this be so?

• It can't be about targeting the rich countries - that doesn't explain why South Korea and Israel are off the list
• It can't be about shrinking economies as that doesn't explain why India and Brazil are off the list
• It can't be about stability of the country as South Africa and Malaysia are pretty stable

So what gives? Is this real bias or are we just looking at the start of world wide expansion and marketing?

sorry for the long post and sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes

let's see some interesting comments below

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