It’s a country with a population of over 1.3 billion, so this should surprise no one, but yes, China appears to be to the iPhone what flowers are to bees.
IDG News reports that in a conference call yesterday, Apple COO Tim Cook revealed that between January and March 2011, iPhone sales in “Greater China” surged nearly 250 percent over the same period, year-on-year. That brings Apple’s fiscal first half to almost $5 billion in revenue from China alone–four times more than the same period in 2010, and accounting for a whopping 10 percent of Apple’s overall revenue.
“We continue to be on a tear in China …[we’re] extremely happy with how we’re doing…” Cook said during the call, noting early on that U.S. iPhone sales grew by 155 percent year-on-year. “…[It] wasn’t but a couple years ago that that number [10 percent] would have been less than two… And so it’s a sea change.”
Sorting the term “Greater China” can get a little tricky, as it means different geographical things to different people. IDG News’s Michael Kan cites an Apple spokesperson as indicating it includes China mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Given all that land-space adds up to nearly 14,000 square miles, pretty much “all over the place” then.