“At the Xidan Joycity mall in Beijing in September, 17-year-old student Wu Kai waded through a packed Apple Store to buy iPhones for himself and his girlfriend. He also placed an order for two more for his parents,” Adam Satariano reports for Bloomberg Businessweek. “His family already has just about every other Apple gadget — a Mac desktop and laptop, an iPad mini, and, soon, the new bigger-screen iPad Pro. ‘Apple products are becoming family members,’ he said.”
“Chinese customers such as Wu have helped Apple largely avoid the decline that’s affected its smartphone rivals,” Satariano reports. “The question is how long Apple can sustain its pace amid China’s economic slowdown.”
Satariano reports, “Channing Smith, managing director at Capital Advisors, which owns Apple stock, says the company may see growth tail off in the short term, but he has faith in services such as Apple TV, Apple Music, and Apple Pay becoming more valuable with time.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Apple makes aspirational products. Apple has plenty of headroom even in slow-growing, or even non-growing markets, thanks to Windows and Android switchers.