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Apple Inc's Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook was in Beijing again on Tuesday, according to some Chinese websites.
Cook paid a visit to the headquarters of China Telecom Corp Ltd, the nation's smallest mobile operator by user numbers, according to China's biggest news portal sina.com.cn. It did not provide further information.
China Daily contacted Effie Wu in Apple China's public relations department, but she said there would be no comment on the Chinese media reports. All Chinese telecom carriers declined on Tuesday to respond to the reports.
Analysts speculated that Cook, if he indeed did visit Beijing, had come to discuss Apple's shrinking sales in China with related partners. Meanwhile, it is very likely that Cook will hurry to hammer out a deal with China Mobile Ltd, since the latter can introduce hundreds of millions of users to Apple.
United States-based Apple said last week that its revenue from China fell 14 percent year-on-year to $4.6 billion in the quarter ended June 29. The figure, which represents a 43 percent decline from the previous quarter, marked the first time that revenue decreased in the region.
Overall, Apple's quarterly global revenue remained flat at $35.3 billion during the period.
Cook's rumored visit to China would be the second within a year. In January, Cook flied to Beijing to hold discussions with high-level management of three Chinese mobile operators. He also met with Miao Wei, minister of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology during that trip.
