Apple opened its first store in Bandra, India

American multinational company Apple has opened the first official Apple store in India. BBC reports that Apple has opened its official store in Bandra, Mumbai, which is the financial capital of India.

The Apple Store was inaugurated by Apple CEO Tim Cook. During the inauguration, Team Cook opened the doors of the first store in India waving to the customers. He also took a selfie shaking hands with some customers who came to the Apple store.

According to Indian media, a large number of people came from all over the country to watch the opening ceremony of the Apple store in Mumbai. Local music and folk dances were also shown at the opening ceremony.

Apple store design in Mumbai is done in light coffee color. Earlier, there was no official Apple store in India. Apple products were sold online or through a large network of resellers.

The ‘Jio World Drive Mall’, which houses this Apple retail store, is owned by India’s tycoon Ambani Group. Apple has signed an agreement to operate a store in this mall with an area of ​​20,800 square meters.

According to the agreement, Apple will keep a store in the mall for 11 years. In addition, Apple will now have to pay monthly installments of Rs 4.2 lakh for the store in the mall, which will increase the rent at the rate of 15 percent every three years.

Similarly, it is mentioned in the agreement that Apple has to pay two percent of the income from here for the first three years to the Ambani group. From the following year, 2.5 percent of the income has to be paid annually.

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Sony, Facebook and other tech companies have opened their official stores in Jio World Drive mall owned by Ambani Group.

In order to further expand its retail market in India, which is the second largest smartphone market in the world, Apple has opened the first Apple Store here, CEO Tim Cook said.

He said, “So far in India, Android dominates the smartphone market and iPhone has only 9 percent of the smartphone market. Therefore, we are trying to make our retail market more efficient.”

According to CEO Cook, Apple is also developing India as a production base for iPhone, and currently 5 percent of the total iPhone production in the world is in India.

Earlier, in 2021, Apple tried to physically open its official store in India, but due to the Corona epidemic, it was not possible at that time.

This is the second visit of Apple CEO Tim Cook to India. Earlier, he visited India in 2016. After coming to India, Cook shared a picture with famous Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit.

After opening Apple’s store, Tim Cook has scheduled a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Deputy Minister of Information Technology Rajiv Chandrasekhar.

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