“Greater China leapt past Europe to become Apple’s second largest market in revenue terms during the January-March quarter, and analysts say it won’t be long before the region surpasses the U.S. to become the tech giant’s top market,” Ansuya Harjani reports for CNBC.
“Apple’s second-quarter revenue from Greater China – defined as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan – totaled $16.8 billion, a whopping 71 percent year-over-year jump,” Harjani reports. “This tops the revenue of $12.2 billion out of Europe, and closes in on the $21.3 billion made from the Americas.”
“David Garrity, principal at GVA Research, doesn’t see China’s love for Apple dying off anytime soon,” Harjani reports. “Chinese mobile users are in the midst of a ‘strong upgrade cycle,’ he said. ‘We are seeing a great move away from large, form factor phones [running on] Android operating systems to Apple.’ At the current pace, China should become ‘Apple’s largest geographic end market’ before the end of its next fiscal year, which runs through to September 2016, he said. Tom Kang, research director at Counterpoint Research, expects China could overtake the U.S. as its biggest sales market even sooner – by the January-March quarter of 2016.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yesterday, during their conference call with analysts, Apple said they are progressing well with their plans for retail store expansion in Greater China, where they added six new stores in the past quarter alone, bringing them to 21 stores in 11 cities. Apple stated they are on track to have 40 stores open in Greater China by the middle of next year.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]