Despite Lenovo’s continuous growth in the rapidly expanding Chinese PC market, it wasn’t enough to keep Apple from briskly leapfrogging to the top spot.
Lenovo, which has long been heralded as a stronghold in China and a formidable growing company around the rest of the world, managed to increase sales in the greater China region – which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan – by 23.4% over the last year.
That sounds pretty impressive, until you look at Apple’s numbers for the same period. In the second quarter of 2011, Apple sales in the region exploded by 600%.
With the introduction of products like the iPhone and the iPad – which are cheap in comparison to Apple’s storied legacy of luxury, expensive computers – Apple has managed to break into the humongous country in a big way.
In fact, Apple is so popular in China now that fake Apple Stores became rampant throughout the country.
Official Apple Stores exist in the largest cities like Beijing and Shanghai, and are consistently met with mob scenes when a new iPhone or iPad product is launched.
The company’s growth in China is only one part – albeit arguably the biggest part – of an increasing international strategy for Apple. When the iPad was first released in the US, consumers all over the world had to turn to the black market to get their hands on one.
Now, Apple has opened up official presences in dozens of countries, primarily in Europe and Asia, including many that it had never been involved with before.
