Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner visits Shanghai amid a slowdown in China iPhone gross sales

Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner is on a go to to Shanghai, in accordance with a publish on his official Weibo account on Wednesday, forward of the inauguration of a brand new retail retailer and declining iPhone gross sales within the nation.

A video connected to the publish confirmed Cook dinner taking a stroll alongside one of many metropolis’s widespread vacationer districts and having breakfast with Chinese language actor and tv persona Zheng Kai.

In response to a press release on Monday, the brand new retail retailer, positioned within the metropolis’s Jing’an district, will open Thursday. 

Cook dinner usually visits China — a significant market and manufacturing base for Apple — to launch merchandise, open factories, and meet with native officers. Earlier this month, Apple additionally announced plans to develop its analysis facilities in Shanghai and Shenzhen. 

His newest journey additionally comes amid reports that iPhone gross sales in China declined 24% within the first six weeks of 2024 in contrast with the identical interval a yr earlier.

The decline in gross sales was partly attributable to abnormally excessive shipments by Apple at first of 2023 but in addition elevated competitors from native manufacturers similar to Huawei, in accordance with analysts.

Final yr, Cook dinner visited China in October following experiences that iPhone 15 gross sales within the nation have been weaker in contrast with gross sales of the sooner mannequin. 

That journey got here a month after experiences on workers at China’s central authorities businesses being banned from utilizing iPhones for work. The Chinese language Overseas Ministry denied the experiences. 

On Friday, Apple reportedly agreed to pay $490 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that Cook dinner misled traders a few steep downturn in iPhone gross sales in China again in November 2018, in accordance with a preliminary settlement filed in Oakland, California, federal court docket.