China Can’t Get Enough Apple iLove
Yesterday, after Apple released its financial report, CEO Tim Cook took a moment to rave about how much the Chinese market has grown, claiming that the hunger for Apple products in China is the greatest he has seen in his lifetime.
According to GameIndustry.biz, in 2009, China only generated two percent of overall sales for the fiscal year. Last year, the region accounted for 16 percent, which is Apple’s second biggest market. China accounted for $4.5 billion in revenue for Apple, Inc. in fiscal year 2011, which is an increase of 270 percent year-over-year.
“Certainly in my lifetime, I’ve never seen a country with as many people rising into the middle class that aspire to buy products that Apple makes. And so I think it’s an area of enormous opportunity, and it has become number 2 on our list of top revenue countries very, very quickly,” Cook stated.
China is home to only six Apple retail stores at this time, but also offers a network of over 200 resellers and 7,000 point-of-sales for the iPhone.
In that same conversation with investors, Cook stated that tablet market will outgrow the PC market in places like Russia, the Middle East and Brazil. He admitted that the iPad’s popularity has cannibalized Mac sales. Although Apple shot its own foot with its tablet, Cook also commented that people are buying iPads instead of a Windows-based PC, so the company isn’t too worried about it.
