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Apple Attaching More Importance to ChinaSHANGHAI, Jun 13, 2012 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- US consumer technology giant Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) attaches more importance to the Chinese market nowadays. It unveiled contents related to top three product lines, namely MacBook, OSX and iOS at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 11 and special instructions for both OSX and iOS in the Chinese mainland are available. In addition, supports to Chinese Internet applications including search engine of Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), online video of Tudou Holdings Ltd. and Youku.com Inc. (NYSE: YOKU), microblogging service of Sina Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA), are embedded in both OSX and iOS. Notably, new-generation Siri supports Chinese-language voice. The conference featured China elements and in line with industry observers, it was the huge Chinese market that caused Apple to continue shifting rules of the game. Actually, it had begun benefiting from the market and in the fiscal quarter ending March this year, it saw operating revenue in the Greater China Region rise three times from a year ago to USD 7.9 billion, reaching a record high and accounting for about 20 percent of the total. Driven by iPhone 4S, an upgraded version of iPhone 4, it witnessed sales volume of iPhone products there surge up by five times from a year earlier. The figure is expected to increase to a large extent after Siri, a major function of iPhone 4S, supports Chinese-language voice. In the meantime, it saw laptop computer MacBook be used by more and more people there. Craig Federighi, vice president responsible for MacOS at it, even called on developers to develop China-oriented software at the conference. Tim Cook, CEO of it, said in an interview after paying a visit to China in March this year that the market was very important for it and it expected to invest more and achieve more there. And judging from the conference, it did attach more importance to the market. However, some industry observers believe that this is still not enough. Zhang Xing, an analyst with Rational AB, said that it attached rising importance to the market and on the one hand, this indicated that the market potential was huge. And on the other hand, this signaled that it needed something new to maintain strong momentum there. An analyst with Analysys International also thinks so and in his opinion, it will be a tough job for it to always maintain a strong momentum in the market over the following few years provided that it fails to launch products that can well satisfy people in terms of not only demand but also experience. (USD 1 = CNY 6.37) Source: www.nf.nfdaily.cn (June 13, 2012) |