INDIA. Mumbai: Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) is set to open its first retail store in India, and on Wednesday it unveiled the first look of its first official store in India, as several people attempted to get a glimpse of the store’s black and yellow artwork, which is patterned after Mumbai’s famous taxis.
The first retail store, located in the Reliance Jio World Drive mall in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai, which is also home to several high-end clothing and jewellery labels like Kate Spade, Michael Kors, and Swarovski, will shortly open its doors to customers.
The brightly lit store was “inspired by the famous Kaali Peeli taxi art that is only found in Mumbai,” Apple said, referring to the old yellow and black taxis in that city.
The store is still behind barricades but is likely to open its doors this month, a person with knowledge of the situation said. The Apple logo was decorated in a variety of colours, and a modified version of the company’s iconic greeting, “Hello Mumbai,” was displayed outside the store on Wednesday evening as people took photos and recorded videos on their smartphones.
With the launch of an online retail store in the second-largest smartphone market in the world in 2020, the Cupertino, California-based business has seen significant growth in the Indian market.
Apple only holds 3% of the Indian smartphone market due to its high prices.
Apple has had trouble opening physical stores in the country before. Its plans to open in 2021 were pushed back because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Apple products have long been available in India through resellers and on e-commerce sites like Walmart Inc.’s (WMT.N) Flipkart and Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN.O).
India is becoming more and more of a manufacturing centre. Foxconn and Wistron Corp., both of which are based in Taiwan, assemble the iPhone and other Apple products there. Additionally, Apple intends to assemble AirPods and iPads in India.
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