According to Angela Ahrendts, Apple's senior vice president of retail and online stores, the company plans to open five new retail stores in China before the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Its new store in Zhengzhou, Henan, has opened to customers and another new store in Hangzhou will be opened on January 24, 2015. Chinese Lunar New Year, otherwise known as Chun'jie, is a week-long holiday beginning on February 19, 2015.

With the opening of the five new stores, Apple will have 20 retail stores in mainland China. Statistics show that Apple currently has 448 retail stores around the world and over one million customers visit those stores each day. Of its owned stores, the Nanjing East store in Shanghai has the largest traffic with daily visits of over 25,000 visitors.

In 2014, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that they planned to increase the number of stores in China to 40 in two years.

Ahrendts said that the company's biggest challenge in China is to keep pace with the development. It is important to meet the increasing demands of consumers while ensuring the global unified service standards.