China Spurts to Top of Apple's iPhone Growth Chart
It’s taken a few years, but the most populous country in the world has finally become the iPhone’s fastest growing market. In Apple’s second quarter, iPhone sales in China surged nearly 250 percent year over year, significantly more than the 155 percent growth they posted in the United States.
“We continue to be on a tear in China,” Apple COO Tim Cook said during the company’s earnings call Wednesday. “Revenue for the first half or first fiscal half in Greater China [was] just under $5 billion, which is up almost four times year over year.”
As I’ve written here before, don’t underestimate Apple’s growth story in China, especially when it comes to the iPhone. Recall that iPhone sales in Asia more than doubled during the company’s first quarter as well. At that time, revenue from China was already a staggering $2.6 billion. Taken together with China revenue from Apple’s latest quarter and it’s nearing $5 billion.
“In the first half [of 2011], we did…just slightly under $5 billion in Greater China in revenue,” Cook said. “That’s about 10 percent of Apple, to put it in perspective. And it wasn’t but a couple of years ago that, that number would have been less than two. And so it’s a sea change.”
And now, with four retail stores open in the country and 21 more planned over the next two years, the tide is just getting started.
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