TIM Cook was in Beijing yesterday, making him the first Apple chief executive to visit China.

The late Steve Jobs never made a trip to the country that has become one of the company's biggest customers and where its products are made.

Cook was seen visiting the Joy City Apple Store in Beijing's west, one of Apple's five directly-operated stores on the Chinese mainland. Pictures recording Cook's visit were posted online.

According to posts on Weibo, Cook met Wang Xiaochu, China Telecom's chairman, and senior executives of China Unicom.

China Unicom and China Telecom are Apple's official carrier partners and sell iPhones in China. China Unicom began selling the latest iPhone 4S in January and China Telecom, the newer partner, began sales earlier this month.

China is a "staggering" market with "off the charts" sales of the iPhone, Cook had said previously.

Research firm IDC said China may become the world's largest smartphone market this year, overtaking the US.

There was online speculation that Cook was in China to talk about opening new stores, the next generation of iPhones and the lawsuits involving the iPad trademark.

"Tim had great meetings with Chinese officials. China is very important to us, and we look forward to even greater investment and growth here," Apple spokeswoman Yuna Huang said yesterday.