Two days after the opening of Apple BKC in Mumbai, the Apple Saket store has opened in New Delhi. As before, the store was opened by CEO Tim Cook and retail head Deirdre O’Brien.
Apple has now shared official photos of the opening, with the event providing our first look at the curved frontage mentioned by Apple as a feature of the new store …
Background
The opening of the first two Apple Stores in India this week marked the successful conclusion of a long, uphill battle with the government.
As part of a push to kickstart high-tech manufacturing in the country, the Indian government required a company to manufacture around 30% of its products within the country before it was allowed to open a single-brand store. The law was essentially created specifically to target a handful of tech giants, with Apple top of the list.
The iPhone maker was involved in extensive negotiations on the details of this, before finally receiving the official go-ahead.
Apple Saket store
As with Apple BKC, the Cupertino company shared some preview photos of Apple Saket ahead of the official opening. But while the former store was revealed to have a spectacular and beautiful design, the latter appeared to be much more of a standard mall store.
We’re expecting Apple to provide official photos of the opening a little later today, but in the meantime some unofficial photos and video clips have been shared online (below).
The only apparent standout feature mentioned by Apple was a curved entrance, but the company didn’t include this in the photos it shared.
Apple Saket welcomes customers through a uniquely designed curved storefront with white oak tables displaying Apple’s products and accessories, as well as a feature wall manufactured in India.
We can now see how this looks, and it does appear to be the only visibly unique feature of the store (top photo), with the “feature wall” appearing unremarkable.
Someone brought a Macintosh SE to the BKC opening, and appears to have started a vintage Apple product trend, with one visitor turning up with a 1999 iBook G3, among other things (or at least the boxes from the same).
Here’s the full set of official photos, with unofficial videos below.
Another video clip, spotted by Patently Apple, shows a lengthy line of people waiting to enter the store, split across multiple floors of the mall.
Cook also met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, promising further investment and growth in the country.
We’ll update once Apple shares its own photos.
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