Apple did more than impress developers this week as WWDC 2014 got underway. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant also impressed Wall Street.
Although Apple didn’t take the wraps off of any new hardware during the keynote for WWDC 2014, the grand reveal of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite were more than sufficient to wow Wall Street.
On Tuesday, shares of AAPL climbed $8.89, closing at $637.54.
Particularly noteworthy to investors this week was the revelation from Apple CEO Tim Cook that iPhone ownership is surging in China today, almost entirely at Android’s expense.
Half of Apple’s Chinese customers have rapidly transitioned from Android to iPhone in just the last six months.
“They [Chinese consumers] bought an Android phone, by mistake, then sought a better experience, and life,” Cook said in his opening remarks Monday.
As MMW reported last month, Chinese consumers are finally adopting Apple’s iPhone with the same degree of intensity and interest once reserved for Google’s little green robot.
China Mobile, which remains the world’s biggest mobile carrier with its 788 million subscribers, will likely send a thank-you note to Apple in the very near future.
According to the latest published reports out of Asia, strong iPhone sales are mostly responsible for accelerating 4G LTE adoption across China.
As of this writing, approximately half of the 2.8 million 4G LTE subscribers on China Mobile are iPhone owners.
This is particularly impressive considering that Apple’s iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c have not even been available on China Mobile for six months.
Nonetheless, says China Mobile CEO Li, Apple’s iPhone has become the preferred smartphone for Chinese customers, many of whom are quickly upgrading older devices to more modern handsets.
China Mobile is yet to reveal how many 3G subscribers are currently using iPhones.
