Sunday, May 22, 2016
Dubai: After wrapping up his first official visit to India on Saturday, which included a visit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Apple CEO Tim Cook make a surprise visit to the UAE.
The CEO of the world’s largest information technology company strolled unannounced into the Dubai store, where he shook hands and took selfies with customers and employees.
Apple opened its first retail store in the UAE last year, with one in Dubai and another in Abu Dhabi. In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, Cook said it was important for the company, which has over the past 15 years driven the consumer electronics industry with a number of trendsetting devices including the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, to have a consumer presence in the Middle East.
“It’s important to have a retail store in key markets,” he said. “Not every market can support one but Dubai can clearly support more than one, so it’s great to be here.”
Apple recently has been under some pressure due to its latest quarterly results announced in April, when the company say its first quarterly fall in revenues since 2003. Overall revenue dropped 12.8 per cent to $50.6 billion.
When asked what he thought of those who said the results showed Apple was no longer an innovation leader, Cook said the company still have the best line-up of products on the markets, which was what the company wanted to achieve.
“What we are focused on is delivering the best products that really enrich people’s lives. That’s the benchmark that we measure ourselves to. We don’t measure it to selling the most or even being first. We don’t measure to that. We’d rather get something right,” he said. “We didn’t have the first Mp3; we didn’t have the first tablet; we didn’t have the first smartphone; we didn’t have the first smartwatch. Being the first or selling the most isn’t the macro objective. Our North Star is to create the best products, and I feel we’re doing that and doing that really well.”
Apple isn’t likely to announce any new products until later this year, analysts say, although the company will be holding its annual World Wide Developers Conference in June. The conference is known for announcing new services, such as the 2015 announcement of Apple Music. Media rumours say the iPhone 7 could be launched this autumn.
For the future, Cook said he’s like to see technology do more to “help lift people up,” saying that technology is about of giving power to many people and “empowering people to do something they couldn’t do otherwise.”
He also sees a role for technology in helping with many of the world’s problems.
“I think if you look out and you think about some of the world’s biggest problems today, technology should be a part of the solution of all of that,” Cook says. “That’s why we get up in the morning. The world has lots of big challenges and some things which are basic are also profound, like feeding people and clean water and clean air and trying to get people to live better longer. I think we can play a role in many of them.”
By Scott Shuey Business Editor
Gulf News 2016. All rights reserved.
