People line up to enter a newly-opened Apple Store in Wangfujing shopping district in Beijing last October.(Photo: Andy Wong, AP)
BEIJING -- Apple expects China to overtake the United States as
its biggest market, CEO Tim Cook told a Chinese government news agency.
"China
is currently our second largest market. I believe it will become our
first. I believe strongly that it will," the Xinhua News Agency quoted
Cook as saying in an interview.
The report gave no details of when
Cook thought China might pass the United States. Apple Inc.
spokespeople in China did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Apple has said sales in China more than doubled in 2010 and 2011 though growth has slowed in the past year.
Apple's
iPhones, iPads and other gadgets are popular with China's
highest-earning consumers but its fast-growing smartphone market is
dominated by handsets that use rival Google Inc.'s Android system.
Cook
was in Beijing to meet with Chinese regulators and managers of
state-owned China Unicom Ltd., the first Chinese carrier to support
Apple's iPhone.
Xinhua said Cook did not respond to rumors Apple might be developing a lower-cost iPhone for developing markets such as China.
Also
in Beijing, Cook met the chairman of China Mobile Ltd., the world's
biggest phone carrier, with more than 700 million subscribers. China
Mobile has no agreement to support the iPhone, and adding it as a
partner would help Apple increase its appeal in China.
China
Mobile chairman Xi Guohua and Cook discussed "bilateral cooperation,"
the phone company said in a statement. It said release of other details
was barred by a confidentiality agreement between the companies.
China Mobile says its network already is used by several million customers who brought in unlocked iPhones from abroad.
Apple
opened a multistory flagship store on a prominent corner in Beijing's
busy Wangfujing shopping district in October, raising its number of
mainland retail outlets to 11. Independent stores also resell Apple
products.
According to Xinhua, Cook responded to complaints about
wages and other work issues at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that
assembles Apple's products in vast factories in China, by saying his
company enforces strict codes of conduct for its suppliers.
"We
care very deeply about every worker that touches an Apple product,
whether they are making it, selling it, serving it or marketing it. We
hold ourselves to a very high standard there," he was quoted as saying.
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