Three Apple store grand openings this weekend in Charlotte, Little Rock and Paris

This Saturday, Apple is opening a new international store at the Carré Sénart shopping mall south of Paris.

Last week, Apple opened three new retail spots in the United States, England and Spain and this week the company continues its ambitious retail expansion with three grand openings scheduled Saturday in France and America, ifoAppleStore reports. The publication says two new stores will open in American states of North Carolina and Arkansas. The latter is interesting because it will be Apple’s first store in the state of Arkansas, found in Little Rock’s Promenade at the Chenal mall. Another store is set to open for business at the Northlake Mall in Charlotte, North Carolia. Apple has also been operating the Southpark store in the area since 2004. The publication sums up Apple’s retail gains in the US:

With the addition of Arkansas, Apple now has stores in the District of Columbia and 44 states. Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, West Virginia and Vermont are still without an Apple store. 

A new store in south of Paris will also be interesting, found at the Carré Sénart shopping mall south of Paris and seen in the above shot. “The store will be the fourth store in the region and the ninth in the country”, ifoAppleStore writes. Apple is also set to open its priciest store ever in Hong Kong next month and has inked a ten-year deal on ‘world’s biggest’ store that will be integrated right inside New York’s landmark Grand Central Terminal station. A pair of new stores is also set to open in Germany’s City-Galerie and Jungfernstieg and three in Spain.

And in Bologna, Italy, Apple has changed the shape of some windows and the roof in order to uniform the store building in the city center, as seen in the “before” and “after” photographs courtesy of SetteB.IT. The Bologna store is most likely to become Apple’s ninth retail spot in the country, following planned store openings in Marcianise in the province of Caserta, Misterbianco in the province of Catania and Campi Bisenzio in the province of Florene, which opened August 13 as Italy’s sixth store.

According to retail experts quoted by USA Today, Apple has become the nation’s fastest-growing retailer. It’s easy to see why CNN’s Money blog praised Apple as America’s greatest retailer. Apple Stores, which turned ten in May, recently greeted one billionth retail visitor and still more than half the new Mac buyers never owned a Mac before. In addition to the U.S., Apple operates stores in far-flung places like Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, UK and Japan. Apple pledged to open thirty new stores by the end of their fiscal year in September.