Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Surprise Move to Reassure Investors

— -- In a rare mid-quarter comment on Apple's performance, CEO Tim Cook said today the company's "performance so far this quarter is reassuring" as the iPhone maker continues to attract new customers in the burgeoning Chinese market.

Cook's statement, which was sent to CNBC and was confirmed by ABC News, comes the same day as the Dow fell about 1,000 points at the opening bell amid a global sell-off and was on pace for a record drop before recovering later in the day.

"I get updates on our performance in China every day, including this morning, and I can tell you that we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August," Cook wrote.

That accelerated growth has come from increased iPhone activations over the past few weeks, along with the company's App store in China having its best performance of the year over the past two weeks, Cooks said.

"Obviously I can’t predict the future but our performance so far this quarter is reassuring," Cook wrote. "Additionally, I continue to believe that China represents an unprecedented opportunity over the long term as LTE penetration is very low and most importantly the growth of the middle class over the next several years will be huge."

ABC News' Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.