(Yicai) March 21 -- Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is visiting Shanghai before the opening of the US tech company’s largest store in Asia and second-largest in the world in the eastern Chinese city.

Cook visited Apple China’s headquarters in Shanghai yesterday. There, he met several Apple suppliers, such as BYD Electronics, Lens Technology, and Everwin Precision Technology, which demonstrated their intelligent manufacturing technologies and products.

Apple opened its eighth Apple Store in downtown Shanghai today. It is the company’s second-largest worldwide after the one on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

No supply chain in the world is more critical to Apple than China’s, Cook said yesterday during the meeting with suppliers.

Cook also walked around the Bund with famous Chinese actor Zheng Kai, watched a movie about China’s traditional lion dance, and posted a photo on social media with Chinese game developer PaperGames’ founder Yao Runhao yesterday.

Apple is facing fierce competition in China. In the first six weeks of the year, Apple’s iPhone sales in the country declined 24 percent from a year earlier to rank fourth among smartphone brands in China, with a market share shrinking to 15.7 percent from 19 percent, according to data released by market research firm Counterpoint Research on March 5.

In the first fiscal quarter of the year, Apple’s revenue from China dropped nearly 13 percent from the same period a year before, according to the firm’s quarterly earnings report released last month. Apple is not happy about the poor performance in the Chinese market, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said, adding that China remains a market full of long-term opportunities.

Editor: Futura Costaglione