Apple, Google CEOs head to China
Leaders of Apple, Google, and other US technology giants head to China this weekend to pursue a familiar goal: To do more business in the world’s most populous nation. Apple Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and IBM head Ginny Rometty are scheduled to attend the China Development Forum. Cook is co-chairing the event this year, and Apple has the most at stake in China among US tech companies.
Leaders of Apple, Google and other US technology giants head to China this weekend to pursue a familiar goal: to do more business in the world’s most populous nation. The effort has had mixed results, at best, in the past.
With a trade war brewing between the world’s two largest economies, the goal has gotten loftier still. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google; and Ginny Rometty, head of International Business Machines (IBM), are scheduled to attend the China Development Forum, an annual gathering that helps Western corporations build relationships with the country’s government officials.
Cook is co-chairing the event this year, and Apple has the most at stake in China among US tech companies. Its iPhones and other gadgets have sold well in the country, but revenue from the region fell in Apple’s last fiscal year. The Cupertino, California-based company has also been criticised recently for relocating the data of Chinese iCloud users to state-controlled server farms.
Last year, IBM announced a deal with Chinese company Wanda Group at the forum. The deal was meant to help IBM expand in the country’s cloud market, though Caixin reported recently that Wanda would stop working with the US company.
Google pulled out of mainland China in 2010 over government censorship of its search results. The company has been trying to return in recent years, but has made little progress.
These hurdles will only get higher if a trade war erupts between the US and China. On Thursday, President Donald Trump ordered 25 per cent tariffs on at least $50 billion of Chinese imports, including information and communication technology. He also accused China of stealing intellectual property. China responded with its own duties on some US imports. Apple could see a negative effect on about 15 per cent of its business if China were to retaliate with duties on imports of US products, Loup Ventures’ Gene Munster said in an email earlier on Thursday.
Steve Mollenkopf, Qualcomm’s CEO, will attend the conference but has cancelled his plan to speak. The conference comes just days after Bloomberg News reported that Chinese regulators are seeking more protections for local companies before approving Qualcomm’s proposed purchase of NXP Semiconductors NV.