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Tim Cook reassures investors Apple's performance in China remains strong

Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has told investors that Apple's performance in the volatile Chinese economy remains 'reassuring'

Apple Chief executive Tim Cook tells The Telegraph about key features in the new Apple Watch
Apple chief executive Tim Cook has reassured investors that Apple's performance in China remains strong Credit: Photo: Corbis

Apple's Tim Cook has reassured worried investors that the company's performance in China remains strong amid fears of the country's very own 'Black Monday'.

In a rare statement outside of Apple's quarterly financial results, Cook emailed CNBC presenter Jim Cramer to ease nervous investors' minds.

"I get updates on our performance in China every day, including this morning, and I can tell you that we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August. Growth in iPhone activations has actually accelerated over the past few weeks, and we have had the best performance of the year for the App Store in China during the last two weeks."

Cook added that while he couldn't predict the future, Apple's performance this quarter so far was 'reassuring'.

"Additionally, I continue to believe that China represents an unprecedented opportunity over the long term as LTE penetration is very low, and most importantly the growth of the middle class over the next several years will be huge'.

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More than $5 trillion has been wiped off global stocks since China unexpectedly devalued its currency on August 11, as the country suffered its worst trading day in eight years.

Cook's message comes after Gartner declared smartphone sales had fallen in China for the first time during the second financial quarter.

Sales fell 4 per cent year-on-year during the second quarter of 2015, according to research from Gartner. The fall contributed to the slowest worldwide growth since 2013, with around 330 million units sold globally during the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 13.5 per cent.

Despite this, iPhone sales rose by 36 per cent globally during the three months to June, a 2.4 per cent increase in market share, while rival Samsung's market share slipped by 4.3 per cent. Total iPhone sales in China grew 68 per cent to 11.9 million units.

Chinese economic uncertainty coupled with an increasingly saturated smartphone market caused the downturn, said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

Apple is currently preparing for its next generation of iPhones, believed to be called the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, expected to be revealed at an event in San Francisco on September 9.

China continues to represent an extremely lucrative market for the Californian company. Cook has previously mused that the colour of forthcoming iPhones could be dictated by the taste of customers in specific regions, with the decision to offer a gold iPhone in 2013 reflecting the popularity of that colour among Chinese users.