Q1 2011 was the most profitable in Apple's history, with the company having revenues of almost 30 billion dollars. Of the total receipts, 10% were generated of the Chinese market, specifically the Chinese market contributed 2.6 billion dollars to the company's revenues. The figure is 4 times higher than the one recorded in the same period last year and explains the importance given by Apple to this market. Most clones of iDevices are sold in China and yet Apple manages to extract billions of dollars from legitimate sales. The receipts will definitely increase in the coming months when Apple will launch the iPad 3G in China, so Apple will probably exceed 3 billion dollars in receipts from the Chinese market.
Within that market, Cook reported, revenue from greater China totaled $2.6 billion in Q1 2011, four times the revenue from the same quarter last year. Although China is the world's biggest market for mobile phones, not all of China's 1.3 billion citizens can afford an iPhone. But Huberty estimates that there is a core addressable market of 50 million middle-class Chinese with plenty of disposable income and a "strong interest in smartphones and the Apple brand.
Although these sales seem unimaginable to some, consider that Apple still does not manage to satisfy the demand on the market and if it had managed to produce more terminals then it would probably have generated much higher revenues and profit. For Apple it doesn't really matter that in China there are clones for iDevices or that there is a business with iPhone terminals in China, for them it matters that a country in the world generates 10% of their income and they will do everything they can to maintain that country in the top priorities.
