“Apple Inc. (AAPL) Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook apologized to Chinese consumers after two weeks of being lambasted by state-run media for arrogance and poor customer service,” Bloomberg News reports. “The company’s offense? It failed to replace the back covers of iPhones after repairing electronics inside.”
“Corporate mea culpas have become a rite of passage for international companies criticized by China Central Television, including Volkswagen AG, Carrefour SA and Yum! Brands Inc.,” Bloomberg News reports. “The attacks on Apple come five months after sales of Japanese-brand cars plummeted due to a territorial dispute over uninhabited islands. An official in the administration’s news office who declined to be identified wouldn’t comment on whether Apple’s warranty policies broke any laws. ‘It is completely normal for the Apple company to apologize to Chinese consumers, and I think such action is commendable,’ Hong Lei, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said during a briefing in Beijing today.”
Bloomberg News reports, “In a change, Apple will now offer full replacements of iPhone 4 and 4S models, and the warranty will be reset to one year at that point, Cook said in a letter posted on the company’s Chinese website. Previously, the company provided new parts attached to the back of the customer’s existing iPhone, and didn’t extend the warranty. Apple also vowed to improve training, customer service and monitoring of stores authorized to sell its products in China.”
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MacDailyNews Take: How “foreign” is Apple to China, really, when without Apple Inc., hundreds of thousands of the highest quality, highest paying Chinese assembly jobs — whose very existence will ultimately benefit tens of millions of workers across the Chinese electronics industry — simply would not exist?
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