Asia Bizz: Apple’s new chief executive, Tim Cook visited China for the first time after taking over from late Steve Jobs. At present, Apple has just five stores in mainland China and one in Hong Kong, Cook now plans to invest more in the opening of new outlets. The visit by the chief executive is considered as one of the most important visits as Apple plans to increase its investments in the world’s most populous market.
During Cook’s visit, the chief executive held a series of high level meetings with the officials of the Chinese government and also visited the company’s stores in the Asian country. One spokeswoman in China said that Tim was in China meeting with the government officials. The spokesperson added that China is very important for the company and that they are looking forward for greater investment and growth here. However the spokesperson refused to reveal further details of the trip.
Cook visited Beijing’s Joy City Apple store and the excitement among the locals was seen as they posted pictures on the Chinese micro blogging site Sina Weibo. After five stores, Cook is now looking forward to adding more Apple stores in the Chinese market.
Robert Clarke, an analyst at Electric Speech, a telecom consultancy in Hong Kong said that the Apple major will definitely talk about increasing stores as he has promised to increase the stores in the past.
China is considered as the world’s largest mobile market and it happens to be Apple’s second largest market. But unfortunately, the firm has been losing its share in the market due to the rivals like Samsung, who has become one of the bigger playerd in terms of smartphones.
Moreover the company is also yet to introduce the latest version of the iPad in the country. Cook has another headache in terms of China, with the claims of poor conditions of working at Foxconn that assembles iPhones and iPads.
