Mikey Campbell
Apple is rumored to be readying for a push into China that involves the opening of a supposed research and development center in Beijing and the relocation of a number of App Store and iTunes servers to better serve the Asian market.
Sources told popular Chinese web portal Tencent (via BrightWire) on Tuesday that Apple CEO Tim Cook outlined plans for the R&D center with acting Beijing Mayor Wang Anshun on Jan. 8.
Cook recently visited China and met with the country's head of industry and information technology Miao Wei to discuss Apple's business in the region as well as global communications sector in general. The executive also held talks with the world's largest cellular carrier China Mobile over "matters of cooperation," indicating negotiations for a deal to sell the iPhone or iPad on the telecom's network are ongoing. Currently Apple has two partner carriers in the country in China Telecom and China Unicom.
During the alleged meeting with Wang, Cook also noted that Apple will move to China an undisclosed number of servers dedicated to the App Store and iTunes. Separate sources indicated that Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province or Inner Mongolia could be potential location for the data center which is expected to improve download times for users in the region. The exact nature of the R&D center was not revealed.
Apple is expanding its reach internationally with a new R&D center in Israel aimed at chip making technologies as well as rumored interest in building a facility as part of Russia's "Technopark" initiative.
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23 Comments
This makes sense, so the stock will tank another 5% tomorrow. :) I think this is so funny, from every perspective.
Makes sense. China is such a huge current market and future potential market. Plus China Mobile's requirements would at least be a handset that supports their native '3G' and '4G', and potentially a special email, FaceTime, iMessages and other data network that abides by certain draconian laws.
Plus, I suspect, there are a lot of pretty smart people in China, many of which might like to stay in China.
Better bring gas masks. Just saw some alarming photos of pollution in Beijing. Really too bad, I have been there several times and love that city and its people.
Lot's of folks have opened R&D facilities in China or India, but to little result. Seems very "un-Apple like" to follow that pattern (although I could see doing ethnographic based design research there.)