Qiu Qiuliang, former senior vice president and general manager for customer department of Hewlett-Packard China's Imaging and Printing Group, will be general manger of Apple (AAPL) China, taking up the vacancy left by Ye Peng, who left Apple China in April 2008.

According to local media reports, after being vacant for half a year, the position of Apple China's general manager finally finds a new host. Qiu Qiuliang, who has over 16 years' sales, marketing and management experience, had been senior vice president and general manager for customer department of Hewlett-Packard China's Imaging and Printing Group since May 2002. Previous to that, he was general manager for consumer goods business of HP Hong Kong in 1996 and was transferred to Singapore to be in charge of the Asia-Pacific market of Pavilion home PC in 2000.

Before joining HP, Qiu had served as manager and director in many international companies, including Proctor and Gamble, Swire and Reebok.

Having been focusing on the sales management of corporate customers in recent six months, Qiu may need some time to adapt to its position as general manager of Apple China, for most of Apple's customers are young people who pursue the avant-garde fashion, which is much different from the mature and stable commercial customers.

However, because the main business of Apple in China is sales-oriented, so the major work of Qiu will be channel management, just like what he has done in HP.