Smart phone major Apple eyes bigger China share | WPN World People News

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook is in China amid talks that the smart phone major was looking to expand operations in the region despite facing multitude of problems.

Cook met with government officials in Beijing with media reports indicating that the talks aimed at clearing up a pile of problems in the firm's biggest growth market.

Apple spokesperson in China Carolyn Wu however clarified that his firm was considering higher investments in China.

"Tim is in China meeting with government officials. China is very important to us and we look forward to even greater investment and growth here," said Carolyn.

The spokesperson did not give the details of the Cook's first trip to China since taking the job in August after the death of founder Steve Jobs.

Besides a series of high-level meetings with Chinese government officials, Cook also visited the company's stores in the country.

China is the world's largest and Apple's second biggest mobile market.

But it has been losing out to arch rival Samsung in smartphones. Apple has not yet introduced the latest version of its top-selling iPad in China.

Another problem for Apple in China are claims of poor working conditions at Foxconn that assembles its iPhones and iPads, and has been beset by a series of suicides.

A Hong Kong based activist group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) in an open letter published ahead of Cook's Chinese trip has demanded "that Apple ensure decent working conditions at all its suppliers".

"They describe their daily routine as work, eat and sleep. They described themselves as machines that repeated the same monotonous motion for thousands (of) times a day," the letter said. "With all its success in the global marketplace, Apple undoubtedly has (the) ability to rectify these problems."

Apple is also embroiled in legal battles in China over intellectual property rights over the trademark for the iPad name in China with a local company Proview International Holdings.

Source: The Asia News.Net