Apple is all set to open it’s first official store in Hong Kong. The store would be located in the International Finance Center Mall. According to Ming Pao Daily, a local news outlet, the official date for the grand opening is set on September 24, 2011. But according to Apple, the store would open sometime in this quarter.
According to the local news outlet, the Apple store to be opened is 20,000 square foot in size. It would be fifth Apple store to be opened up in China. Out of the four already existing stores, two are located in Beijing, the capital of China, and the other two are located in Shanghai. According to Ming Pao, Apple is also planning to open up a second store in Hong Kong in the coming future.
The growth of Apple in China has been good so far. It was initially slow to move to Chinese market, but the results are very impressive so far. Apple opened up its Online store to Chinese customers in October 2010. There was no looking back for Apple after that. There has been a great effort from Apple to push it’s products into the Asian markets. The total sales of Apple in China including Hong Kong and Taiwan for the second quarter of 2011, passed the sales of Lenovo. This figure can tell the huge success that Apple is experiencing in China and Asian markets.
There are many other issues that has to faced by Apple in Asian markets. One of these issues is intellectual property issues. There were a lot of fake Apple Stores which opened up in cities such as Kunming which boasted to be genuine Apple store. All such stores will ultimately have to be shut down by Apple in order to protect its brand and products.
Let us see what is the next move by Apple to open up a store. Maybe this time it would consider opening up a store in any of the third world countries.