According to the information shared on the website of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the organization's chief Miao Wei met with Apple CEO Tim Cook - who is on his second trip to the company after taking over the proceedings at Apple - on Friday to discuss the country's IT industry, global mobile communications, as well as Apple's operations.

Moreover, during the course of an interview with China's state-run Xinhua news agency, Cook - forecasting that China will become Apple's No. 1 customer in the years to come - said: "China is currently our second largest market. I believe it will become our first. I believe strongly that it will."

However, while predicting China to be Apple's customer, Cook refrained from giving any projected timeline about when he expects China to surpass the US, which is presently Apple's biggest market by a substantial margin.

Despite the fact that, Apple, as of now, has only 11 locations in China and Hong Kong, Cook revealed that the country is already working on an aggressive expansion in China.

Noting that is persisting with its efforts to increase its investment in the retail stores in China, Cook said that, "over the next several years," the company will open more stores in the country.

Further adding that Apple "manufacturing base" is in China, and that the company has "some great sites selected" in the country, where it has "incredible partners," Cook said that China is "a very very important country to us."