Rare Tim Cook email assures China growth as Apple slides

The broader U.S. market also fell sharply.

In a rare statement outside of Apple’s quarterly financial results, Cook emailed CNBC presenter Jim Cramer to ease nervous investors’ minds.

This fall, 114 schools in 21 states will begin the school year up-to-date on tech thanks to Apple’s contribution of $100 million to provide students with iPads, teachers with Macbooks, and classrooms with Apple TVs. The technology-heavy Nasdaq index was down more than 8 percent. The devaluation was the biggest drop in the currency’s value since the country’s modern exchange rate system was set up in 1994, according to the NYT.

Markets globally are tanking based largely on things happening in China.

As you know, we don’t give mid-quarter updates and we rarely comment on moves in Apple stock.

“I think it’s a classic fear of the unknown”, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a previous interview with Business Insider. He added that growth in iPhone activations has “actually accelerated over the past few weeks”, and Apple’s App Store posted its best performance of the year in China during the past two weeks. “Additionally, I continue to believe China represents an unprecedented opportunity over the long term…”, Cook said in the email.

Investors have become concerned about Apple’s results in China, where the company derives a significant portion of its business.

Still, what happens in China could help shape the global economy for the rest of the year and beyond. “Nothing that’s happened has changed our fundamental view that China will be Apple’s largest market at some point in the future”, Cook said.

China’s phone market is widely believed to be close to saturation with fewer first-time buyers.