Interview to Tim Cook done by Paul Mozur the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau.
Q: Are you concerned about growing competition from cheaper handsets in China?
Cook: I’ve always thought it was important for an individual and a company to have a North Star, something that doesn’t change. Many many things can change but the North Star should be clear, and for Apple that’s always been making the best products in the world. That’s our strategy and that’s not changing today or tomorrow or the next day or the next year.
When you really back up and look at what’s happening in China the usage numbers are staggering. Fifty-seven percent of the mobile browsing in China is done on iOS devices. Now there are many different views of unit market share and you can choose to look at whichever one you think is most reputable, but for us that is not our North Star, we don’t get up in the morning saying we want to sell the most, we get up saying we want to make and create the best, and so that’s our strategy and it doesn’t change.
Q: What is the significance of the iPhone being launched through China Mobile?
Cook: What this partnership does is, it allow us to take the iPhone to a different level in China, to marry it with the fastest network, with TD-LTE [Time-Division Long-Term Evolution], for the very first time. As [China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua] said, this is a new product, this is a world phone. Now you can take your iPhone in China use it on TD-LTE and if you travel to the United States you can now use it on FDD-LTE [Frequency Division Duplexing Long-Term Evolution network]. This is a big deal, it’s huge, and so I couldn’t be happier with how we’re doing.
Q: How is Apple performing in China and how will the deal help its sales outlook?
Cook: Last quarter, we haven’t announced numbers, but I can tell you that last quarter we sold more iPhones in Greater China than at any time in our past. And so it was a record quarter, helped by launching China very first in the queue [launching new iPhones at the same time as the U.S.] And I think with what we’re announcing today, I see a huge barrier being removed, because there are lots of people that love China Mobile’s network and love iPhones and those two spheres are finally coming together, so it’s a monumental day and a watershed announcement.
Apple CEO Hopeful on China
4:43
Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company's deal to offer its devices through China Mobile will help it to bolster sales in the world's biggest smartphone market. Paul Mozur tells Yun-hee Kim why the executive remains optimistic on China in spite of stiff competition in the country’s tech sector.
Cook: I do believe it will help, because I believe that the sum of the gray market is born out of many people wanting something that’s not available where they want to buy it. By having the iPhone at China Mobile in an authorized place that has fantastic service and fantastic sales people, I think many people will desire to buy in China Mobile’s channel. And so as of this weekend we will be selling iPhones in more than 3,000 additional locations from what we were selling it before.
Q: How will cooperation with China Mobile improve your sales channels?
Cook: China Mobile already has a reach to many cities that Apple does not have a reach to. So yes, you will see over time Apple going to more and more cities and this is something that China Mobile’s skill and know-how and distribution network will be an enormous assist to us.
Q: How did the deal, that took six years in the making, come together?
Cook: The iPhone began to support TD-LTE in September, the licenses were issued in November and we announced the deal in December, so it actually came together fairly quickly. Within just eight to ten weeks after Mr. Xi and I met in Cupertino, I came to Beijing. Mr. Xi and I shook hands at that meeting and I knew then it was just a matter of working through some last details. And we spent some amount of time working through those, but the key really big meetings were in the fall of 2012 and January in Beijing in 2013, and then it was a matter of preparing the organizations and executing and working the details. I agree with Mr. Xi, this has been very much like a courtship and all of the discussions that China Mobile and Apple had over the time period before this laid a great foundation because they developed a mutual respect for both companies.
Q: What do you think of China Mobile as a partner?
Cook: We saw a company in China Mobile that was unlike any other company we had ever dealt with, that had enormous skill and enormous size and enormous scale and enormous talent, and so those discussions laid a great foundation. I can tell you that from my point of view, every meeting that occurred between 2008 and today was a good meeting. There were some great meetings, but all meetings were at least good, because we left with a better understanding of one another. Great relationships are not built on always agreeing, they’re built on mutual respect, and they’re built on trying to see the issue from the other lens and I think the time that we spent in allowing that to occur will be great for both companies, and more importantly for the customers that we both serve.
