Apple CEO Tim Cook takes a Didi taxi with Jean Liu Qing, president of Didi, to an Apple store in Wangfujing in downtown Beijing on Monday. Cook's visit follows Apple's investment of $1 billion in the Chinese ride-hailing service. PROVIDED BY WEIBO OF TIM COOK
U.S. tech giant Apple Inc will further speed up efforts to help Chinese-developed mobile applications go global, as local developers reportedly raked in earnings exceeding $7 billion from the company's App Store.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said in Beijing on Monday that about half of the earnings came in the past 12 months alone, indicating strong momentum in the industry.
Cook made the remark during his latest trip to Beijing, as the company is trying to boost its contracting smartphone sales in China, its second-largest market after the United States.
In a meeting at an Apple store in Beijing, Cook said, "Chinese developers are already technologically strong, and Apple will offer more help in the marketing side to help them venture into overseas markets."
Apple has announced that it pumped $1 billion into Didi Chuxing, China's largest ride-hailing platform.
Apple said Cook was in Beijing for an app store developer activity. It declined to comment on whether the senior executive will meet with high-level officials to talk about regulatory issues.
Last month, the government shut down Apple's iTunes movie services and iBooks services on the mainland, and earlier this month, the company lost exclusive rights to its iPhone trademark in China.
Neil Shah, research director at market research company Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said Cook's visit to China, the recent investment in Didi and Cook's promise to help Chinese developers add to the fact that "China is and will remain to be the most important market for Apple".
"Didi's scale and reach is a great channel for Apple to integrate its core services such as Apple Pay and Apple Music into the Didi vehicles and get a share out of the customers' lives," Shah said.
Didi currently handles more than 11 million rides a day and serves about 300 million users in China.
"We believe apart from meeting with Didi, strengthening ties with government and checking the Apple stores' rollout progress are other reasons for this trip," Shah added.
Apple opened seven stores in China during the quarter ending in March and will open five more to take the tally to 40 by the end of June, signifying the importance of the Chinese market for the company.
Read more: Tim Cook's eight visits to China
