Apple's fifth China store to open in Shanghai

Apple will open its fifth retail store in Shanghai this summer, said Ron Johnson, senior vice president of retail operations at Apple Inc. on Thursday.

The other four stores include two in Beijing and one in Shanghai and Hong Kong, respectively.

Apple now has 323 retail stores worldwide and 87 out of them are outside the United States. The four stores in China have both the largest flow of customers and the highest revenue in the world.

The strong demand in the Chinese market also promoted the fastest growth of sales of iPhone in the Asian market, with a more than 100 percent increase year on year.

Johnson said Apple stores' performance in China far exceeded the company's expectation. Currently, the average daily customer flow in China's four stores totaled around 40,000, four times of that in the rest of the world.

The fifth store in China will be located on Nanjing Road in Shanghai and Johnson declined to disclose the size of the store. But he said it will be a very eye-catching one.

In addition, another new store will be opened in Hong Kong at the end of this year.

By Liang Jun, People's Daily Online