With the entire world's growing anticipation of the iPhone 5's market release on the latter parts of September or early October this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook took time to visit China. Although Apple has not stated the exact reason for the trip, it is possible that the CEO came to the country to monitor the condition of the workers in the Foxconn plant and allow to follow-up on the iPhone 5's production.
Nonetheless, these are not the only intentions he had in coming to the republic. According to news sources, the Apple's CEO also took time to meet the top managers of China Unicom, China Telecom,and China Mobile as well as companies which are known to be China's leaders in wireless communication. It is apparent that Apple seeks to be involved with these three companies in order to have additional support for their iPhone and iPad in China.
Additionally, a good publicity could also be a reason for Cook's visit. With several scandals surrounding the laborers' strike, suicide reports and poor working conditions in the Foxconn plant, the company has earned a bad reputation in the country.
Apple wants to show the Chinese people that they care about them. They realize that China is one of their market that generates the highest sales for their devices. This is obvious because despite of the lack of support for the gadgets, there are millions of Chinese who still want to get their hands on iPhones. In fact, there already have been two incidents of hooliganism during the release of the products in stores.
It has been reported that Apple is going to hire an additional 20,000 people in the factory to manufacture the iPhone 5. However, it is also possible that the hiring is also a way for them to compensate for the workers who left their jobs to protest.
