“Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the company will open its 24th store in China on Saturday, expanding an important retail footprint in its largest market outside of the U.S.,” Eric Newcomer reports for Bloomberg.
“China has become an increasingly critical component of Apple’s global business and helped it sell a record 13 million iPhones during the debut weekend of its latest handsets last month,” Newcomer reports. “Apple stores there are crucial for introducing Chinese consumers to the brand and educating users there, Cook said at a Wall Street Journal conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Monday evening.”
Newcomer reports, “‘Our customer base specifically is extremely young, and they’re thirsty for classes and seminars,’ Cook said, without naming the city for the new store. ‘These stores are taking on just a huge role as the face of the company.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Last October, Cook said Apple planned to add 25 retail stores in China within the next two years, which would get Apple to 40 total, so the company has 16 more to go before next year.
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Tim Cook: Apple to add 25 more retail stores in China within two years – October 23, 2014
Not exactly on the take.
Apple set a low bar because one never knows the obstacles well in a foreign country.
Yesterday I was working with a lot of Chinese people who were visiting the UK and I was astonished at how Apple devices were almost ubiquitous with them. Out of about 30 people, nearly all used iPhones and just a handful had ( astonishingly big ) Android handsets.
When it came to laptops, they were all MacBooks with the exception of one single PC laptop that was being used for Powerpoint presentations because it had an in-built VGA socket and could connect to almost any projector without needing adaptors.
I doubt that this was a representative group for China as a whole, but I can’t think of many situations in the west where a similar number of people not connected with Apple would so overwhelmingly be seen to be using using Apple devices.
Talking to them, they are very enthusiastic about their iPhones, iPads and MacBooks. Apple is by far their first choice for technology and they always want Apple’s newest devices.
Tim Cook certainly did a great job several years ago when he realised that China was a big opportunity for Apple and did the groundwork to make China a huge success. I think that India is also likely to be really good for Apple too, but not to the same degree as China.