Apple boss Tim Cook launches charm offensive in vital market

[Pelican Press 0]

Apple boss Tim Cook launches charm offensive in vital market

Apple/Tim Cook

Apple chief Tim Cook is spending a few days in China, one of the tech company’s most important markets and a major manufacturing hub for its products.

His visit comes as iPhone sales in the country dropped 24% year-on-year in the first six weeks of 2024, according to data from

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. The slump was attributed to strong competition from local tech firms such as Huawei, although “abnormally high” sales in January 2023 were also a factor.

Cook arrived in the ****** giant on Wednesday, sharing the news not on X (formerly

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) but to his 1.68 million followers

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, the ******** social media behemoth.

His schedule looks to be a busy one. On Thursday, for example, Cook will open a new Apple Store (below) in the Jing’an district of the massive city of Shanghai.

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Apple

In one of many upbeat posts shared since his arrival, the Apple CEO said he’d taken a stroll along the famous Bund riverside area with ******** actor and TV personality Zheng Kai, and enjoyed “a classic Shanghai breakfast,” adding that he’s “always so happy to be back in this remarkable city.”

Cook also paid a visit to the studio of director Mo Lyu, who, according to another of Cook’s posts, uses Apple products “in every stage of the creative process, from storyboarding with iPad to ********* on iPhone 15 Pro Max, to editing with MacBook Pro.”

Later, the Apple boss posted a photo (top) of himself among a crowd of shoppers inside another Shanghai Apple Store — one of seven, soon to be eight, in the city.

In an interview with the

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on Wednesday, Cook pointed to the importance of Apple’s “longtime, win-win relationship” with ******** suppliers, saying, “It’s the partnership between Apple and ******** companies that really makes things happen.”

But of growing significance regarding Apple’s manufacturing efforts is its recent pivot toward India, with the company aiming to use suppliers there to build a quarter of the world’s iPhones annually within the next three years, according to a

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report in December that cited people familiar with the matter. Apple decided to diversify its manufacturing operations following challenges that emerged during the pandemic and also due to ongoing political tensions between the U.S. and China that could impact supply chains.

But the latest charm offensive by Cook highlights the continuing importance of China to Apple’s bottom line, and its ******* to retain the supply chains and factories that it’s spent years developing there.

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