Apple to enhance suppliers' potential

Apple Inc will beef up its cooperation with Chinese suppliers to help promote the transition to intelligent manufacturing, as the US tech company celebrates 30 years of community, education and innovation in China.

Isabel Ge Mahe, vice-president and managing director of Apple Greater China, said in an interview that "over the past 30 years, Chinese suppliers have grown very fast and become an indispensable, and particularly important part, of our supply chain".

According to her, Apple is very happy to help promote the transition to intelligent manufacturing, which is also a top agenda for China.

"If we want to make our products better, we must enable the employees in the supply chains to be more capable. This is a win-win relationship," Ge Mahe said.

"As we've grown in China, we've helped to connect people and drive creativity. As we look to the future, the possibilities for innovation know no bounds," she added.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, also said in a statement on Friday: "For 30 years, we've been proud to serve people across China, both by sharing our products and services with our customers and by giving back to the communities we're part of.

"We will continue to do our part to enrich the lives of our customers in China, to help them connect with one another and reach their full creative potential, and we will do it all while leaving the world better than we found it," Cook said.

Since its launch in 2008, Apple's App Store has offered developers more opportunities, creating millions of jobs across China through the iOS app economy. In 2022 alone, China accounted for almost 4 trillion yuan ($549 billion) in billings and sales facilitated by the App Store ecosystem, according to a study by economists at market research firm Analysis Group.

From 2019 to 2022, the size of the App Store ecosystem doubled in China, with small developers, in particular, experiencing a 59 percent increase in earnings between 2020 and 2022. Additionally, 23 percent of the thousands of new developers and entrepreneurs from around the world who joined the App Store in 2022 came from China.