Apple sweetens features for Chinese consumers
Apple's sales in China could be poised for sharper growth this year after the technology giant unveiled new features for Chinese users in the updated versions of its desktop and mobile operating systems.
The announcement in San Francisco on Monday came more than three months after Apple chief executive Tim Cook quietly held several meetings in Beijing with key officials and partners that prompted speculation about the company's new investments and alliances.
China is Apple's second-biggest market after the United States.
'Apple's focus on innovating uniquely for China is going to serve them well and build trust with Chinese consumers,' Ben Bajarin, from US technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said. 'I fully expect Apple to continue growing sales in China.'
Apple unveiled the features yesterday as it introduced its next generation of MacBook laptop personal computers at the start of its annual five-day Worldwide Developer Conference. The event included highlights of new features in its OS X desktop operating system and iOS, the mobile platform that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide marketing, said OS X Mountain Lion - the ninth major release of the Mac operating system - included 'significantly improved text input, a new Chinese dictionary, easy set-up with popular e-mail providers, Baidu search in Safari, and built-in sharing to [microblogging service] Sina Weibo', as well as video websites Youku and Tudou.
Mountain Lion will be available next month on Apple's online store.
Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice-president for its iOS software division, said the latest version of the mobile platform, iOS 6, would be available in autumn as a free download for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
iOS 6 will also have better text input and built-in support for popular Chinese internet services led by Baidu's online search engine.
The improved text input in iOS 6 will allow users to mix full and abbreviated pinyin, and type English words in a pinyin sentence without switching keyboards. With support for more than 30,000 characters, iOS 6 more than doubles the number of Chinese characters used in handwriting recognition.
Forstall said Siri, the iPhone's voice-command system, would be available for the iPad with iOS 6, with support for Putonghua and Cantonese. 'Apple wants Chinese consumers to do more with their [computing and mobile] devices,' said Carolina Milanesi, vice-president at market research firm Gartner. She said the strategy would help Apple generate revenue beyond hardware sales.
Yi Liu, head of US mobile software application developer iHealth Lab, said the extra support for Chinese users would boost the number of developers creating programmes for Mac computers, the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Apple reported that robust sales of the iPhone in China helped the company nearly double its profit in its fiscal second quarter to March to US$11.62 billion, compared with US$5.99 billion the previous year.
According to Gartner, sales of Mac desktop and MacBook laptop computers in China have also been strong, with 1.46 million units sold last year.
650,000
The number of applications on Apple's online App Store, according to the company
