Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook met Chinese government officials in Beijing Monday, a company spokeswoman said, as the consumer electronics giant moved ahead with an expansion of its operations in China.
Cook, who is on his first trip to China since becoming chief executive of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company,"had great meetings with Chinese officials today. China is very important to us and we look forward to even greater investment and growth here," said spokeswoman Carolyn Wu. She declined to identify any of the Chinese officials or give further details on the meetings.
Cook has said that Apple's board has been actively discussing what to do with the company's roughly $100 billion in cash, the most of any nonfinancial U.S. corporation. Last week, he said the company would issue a dividend and buy back stock.
Apple, which is in the midst of a legal battle with a Chinese company over the use of the iPad trademark in China, has been ramping up its presence in the country, now the company's largest market outside the U.S.
The company had long relied on resellers to distribute its products in China and didn't officially release the iPhone in China until 2009, but has opened five of its full service Apple Stores in the market since 2008 and now releases its newest products, including the latest iPhones and iPads, in China more quickly.
China is the world's largest mobile market by number of subscribers. It surpassed the U.S. last year to become the world's largest PC market as well.
People snapped photos of a smiling Cook, also known as "Captain Cook" in Chinese, in Apple's Xidan store in Beijing on Monday wearing a blue jacket with a Livestrong logo, for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and posted them online.
The photos were reposted and received hundreds of comments from Apple fans, some noting that the executive's appearance shows the company is now paying more attention to the China market. Many Internet users noted that Apple's previous CEO, the late Steve Jobs, was never known to have visited China.
"After Cook became CEO, he paid great attention to the China Market. And on OSX and iOS operating systems, he integrated Chinese local services step by step," wrote one user called Franky Xu on Twitter-like microblogging site Sina Weibo, referring to the increasing number of services localized for Chinese users offered along with Apple products.
Despite having offered the iPhone in China since 2009, for example, Apple didn't accept payments for media or applications purchased through iTunes until last November."What Steve Jobs didn't achieve, Cook did," the Weibo user said.
Still, Cook's visit comes as Apple faces a complicated legal battle over the rights to use the iPad name in China. The company signed an agreement in 2009 with the Taiwan affiliate of Proview International Holdings Ltd., which registered the trademarks years earlier for a computer it also called IPAD, to purchase the rights in several countries including mainland China. But the trademarks in mainland China were registered by a different affiliate of Proview in Shenzhen, Proview Technology Shenzhen Co., which now refuses to transfer the marks to Apple saying its Taiwan affiliate didn't have the rights to sell its intellectual property.
Apple has sued Proview and its affiliates for the transfer of trademarks, while Proview Shenzhen has asked Chinese authorities to block the import and export of Apple's iPads. There are currently several cases pending, including in mainland China and Hong Kong. IPads are still available in most of China, though Apple hasn't yet announced a local release date for the iPad 3. Research firm IDC estimates that Apple sold over 4 million iPads in China last year.
An attorney for Proview Shenzhen said Monday the company is not expecting to meet with Cook during his trip. Proview Chairman Yang Rongshan also said he isn't expecting to see Cook, either.
Cook's last known visit to China was in June 2011, when he was still Apple's chief operating officer and was spotted at the Beijing office of the nation's largest mobile operator, China Mobile. China Mobile has said it is in talks with Apple about carrying the company's popular iPhone, which is currently offered by its two competitors, China Unicom and China Telecom.
China Mobile Ltd. didn't immediately respond to requests for information, while a public relations representative for China Telecom Corp. said he wasn't aware of any visits from Cook. A China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. public relations representative said he had "no news" to release.
Source:cn-c114.net