Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s Tim Cook Meeting Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA)’s Jack Ma: What Can We Expect?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s CEO Tim Cook is expected to hold a meeting with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA)’s Lead Founder and Executive Chairman, Jack Ma in California later today. Bloomberg’s Lulu Chen talked on Bloomberg TV about the speculations surrounding this meeting.

Chen said that the conversation between Apple Inc. (NADSAQ:AAPL)’s Tim Cook and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA)’s Jack Ma might be a two way flow. She pointed out at Apple’s obvious need of Alibaba’s support to sell its products in China, as Alibaba holds majority of the e-commerce market share in the country.

“[…] Alibaba wants to expand in the US as much as Apple wants to expand in China. If you look at what Tim Cook said last week, they want to double their offline stores in China in the next 2 years, and if you look online, they have a flagship store on Tmall.com, that’s Alibaba’s b2c unit. Online, it is essential for Apple to have the cooperation of Alibaba for its intellectual property rights protection and because Alibaba dominates such a large sector of the e-commerce market, being able to cooperate with Apple and having Alibaba’s consent will definitely help them,” Chen said about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s dependency on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) to expand in China.

 Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was already using flagship stores on Tmall.com, an Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA)’s b2c website to sell the iPhones in China. Chen feels that Apple needs support from Alibaba to protect its intellectual property rights, while selling the products in the country.

Chen mentioned that Ma held meetings with some big studios in the past few weeks which could be possibly for buying some contents or even investing a big stake in some of these studios. She added that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) was looking to expand heavily in the entertainment business. But what can Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) do to help Alibaba Group Holding LTd (NYSE:BABA) grow in US?

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