Cook Wants Apple Pay in China, Plans Store Expansion
Apple (AAPL) chief executive Tim Cook, who previously hasn’t minced words in describing China’s importance to the iPhone maker, last week again called the region a “really key market for us. Everything we do we are going to work it here,” in remarks on the last day of a four-day China excursion last week.
Apple (AAPL) chief executive Tim Cook, who previously hasn’t minced words in describing China’s importance to the iPhone maker, last week again called the region a “really key market for us,” adding, “Everything we do we are going to work it here,” in remarks on the last day of a four-day China excursion last week.
This time, however, Cook wasn’t talking only about adding hundreds of millions of subscribers from China’s three carriers to Apple’s storehouse of iPhone buyers. He mainly was talking about Apple’s new Apple Pay system and the impending Apple Watch.
“We want to bring Apple Pay to China,” he told Xinhua, China’s state run news agency. “I’m convinced there will be enough people that want to use it. It’s going to be successful.”
According to the Xinhua account, the uber-astute Cook hit all the right notes in his remarks, acknowledging he’s yet to understand all the necessary steps to bring Apple Pay to China but pledged to make it happen.
Still, with Apple Pay newly available for a week, already there are bumps in the road with U.S. retailers Rite Aid and CVS disabled the system from working in their stores nationwide over the weekend without giving a reason. Both companies belong to a large consortium of retailers called the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) and are not tied to merchants supporting Apple Pay. MCX is developing its own payment system called CurrentC, which will be ready sometime in 2015.
As for Apple Watch, Cook said, “We are going to wonder how we ever lived without it. That’s the real test of a great product: you wonder how you live without it. And I think that’s going to happen to the Apple Watch.”
Oh, and one more thing: The vendor intends to nearly triple its number of Apple Stores in China to 40 outlets from 15 in the next two years.
Cook also made the necessary political rounds on his visit, meeting with Chinese vice premier Ma Kai for discussions the Apple chief described as “very open,” “fascinating,” and “impressive,” without offering any details.
