Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Tim Cook said that China will become the largest market for the company, surpassing the U.S. market, as the iPhone manufacturer is prepared to open more stores and will launch new products in the country, according to Bloomberg.
“China is currently our second largest market. I believe it will become our first. I believe strongly that it will,” Cook said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency on Thursday, without specifying the timeframe in which this change would occur.
Apple recorded in the third quarter of last year sales of$ 5.7 billion in China, compared to $14.4 billion in the U.S.
On a visit to China, Cook met with the head of China Mobile Group, which has 707 million customers, with a market share of 64%, and has not yet signed an agreement with the American company to introduce iPhone in its offer. Apple distributes the iPhone in China through its own stores and China Unicom and China Telecom operators, positioned second and third on the Chinese market. Cook is at his second visit to China since last year, in an attempt to strengthen Apple’s position on the most important market in the world in terms of growth potential.
The company has 11 stores in China and Hong Kong and is expected to open “a lot more” in the coming years, said Cook for the Xinhua agency. Tim Cook added that he would like to organize product launches for the first time in China. The iPhone 5 has was launched in China in December, almost three months later than in the U.S.
The prospects of the U.S. company on the Chinese market are limited by the lack of an agreement with China Mobile and tough competition with local producers of smartphones which are able to provide good phones at relatively low prices. The research firm IDC estimated that Apple is ranked sixth in China for the sales of smartphones.
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