Apple's growth overseas sets up the company to become the "great China story" of next year, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Thursday.

The tech giant surprised all of Wall Street on Wednesday when it announced a 7-for-1 stock split as well as beating earnings expectations by a wide margin. The acceleration of iPhone growth—about 44 million phones sold last quarter—also bodes well for the company, especially as a blockbuster deal with China Mobile opens up the world biggest wireless market to Apple, he said.