Tim Cook has praised Apple’s symbiotic relationship with China despite rising trade and geopolitical tensions between Beijing and the US, and even the iPhone itself moves to diversify from the country.
In his first visit to China since the pandemic began in 2020, Apple’s chief said the company will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year in the country where it makes most of its iPhones.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” Cook said at the China Development Forum in Beijing, the country’s version of Davos, which Beijing held offline for the first time since the pandemic began. “Apple and China . . . have grown together and it has become a kind of symbiotic relationship.
Cook was one of the leading American business leaders in Beijing as it considered the opening party after three years of a strict zero-Covid policy.
In a sign of how positively the US tech company continues to be viewed in what is also one of its biggest markets, Cook’s trip was covered by Chinese state media as customers at the group’s flagship store in Beijing applauded when he visited the store. Friday.
The trip follows one of Apple’s most difficult years in China in 2022 as zero-Covid President Xi Jinping controls the damaged supply chain.
Apple’s quarterly revenue in the three months to the end of December fell for the first time in three-and-a-half years after “significant” supply chain disruptions in China delayed iPhone deliveries over the holidays.
The company’s biggest supplier, Foxconn, is facing labor unrest in Zhengzhou, the eastern Chinese city where analysts estimate 60 percent of iPhones are made, after authorities locked down the area as part of zero-Covid controls in November.
In the meantime, the US has increased export control in China which uses advanced chip technology, souring the atmosphere for large American investors in the country.
Some users on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, posted photos contrasting Cook’s warm reception at the Beijing store on Friday with Shou Zi Chew, the head of the Chinese-owned short video app TikTok, grilled by the US congress last week.
Cook steered clear of US-China tensions and supply chain issues, in a session on technology and education at the China Development Forum.
“We have a very large supply chain operation in China and of course we also have . . . Apple Stores,” he said, adding that the company has millions of developers in the country for the iOS operating system.
“Since yesterday, we couldn’t wait to get some customers, so we went to the Sanliutn store. [in Beijing],” he said.
Apple is trying to build operations in India as part of its diversification strategy, sending engineers and designers to the country for weeks or months at a time to oversee manufacturing. While it has been producing entry-level iPhones in India since 2017, it has recently started trying to make the top-of-the-line models that are usually made in China.
With additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow