Tim Cook says Apple will open 25 new stores in China, but that promise has been broken before

Back in 2010, Apple declared that it’d open 25 new stores in China over the next two years. But that never happened. Fast-forward four years, and Apple has 15 stores in China – 12 in the mainland and three in Hong Kong.

But today, Apple CEO Tim Cook wheeled out the same promise again, saying that 25 new Apple Stores will open in China in the next two years. The comment came in an interview with Sina’s news site as part of Cook’s latest trip to China, reports Reuters.

That would take Apple’s tally of official stores in China up to 40 – if the plan materializes this time.

Apple makes about 15 percent of its revenue from China, but its growth from the greater China region (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) has been mostly stagnant in the past couple of years.

Apple’s greater China revenues for the past quarter (July to September) fell to US$5.8 billion, down 2.7 percent from US$5.9 billion in fiscal Q3.

Cook is in China until next week. Tomorrow he’s at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, where he’ll be joined by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. On Monday he’ll meet Alibaba’s Jack Ma.

Great to meet talented people like Zhang Fan, who helps make iPhone 6 in Zhengzhou. An early highlight of this trip. pic.twitter.com/ALo5d3SiSZ

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 23, 2014

(Source: Reuters)