The Apple Store in Bengaluru, India, will be opening soon, with the website confirming Apple Hebbal will open its doors on September 2.
Apple has been preparing its third store in India for some time, with reports from May revealing it had rented a space in Bengaluru's Phoenix Mall of Asia. With the opening barely days away, Apple has confirmed the store's existence, and when the public can enter it.
The Apple website listing for the store describes it as Apple Hebbal. Located at F-39 F-43 in the Phoenix Mall of Asia, it will formally open on September 2. The date is apt, as it is just before the usual time period when Apple's September iPhone event takes place, which will see the launch of the iPhone 17 range.
As usual for an Apple Store, consumers will be able to get assistance from specialists at the Genius Bar, take part in Today at Apple sessions, and pick up online orders.
To mark the launch, the Apple Store has a wallpaper for download featuring the Apple logo made using peacock feathers. Apple also has a playlist for the new store's opening in Apple Music.
An expensive operation
The new store won't be the biggest in India by a considerable margin, as the 20,800 square foot Apple BKC store in Mumbai holds that title. In May, it was revealed that Apple has leased 8,000 square foot of space, which includes storage and other areas not intended to be accessed by consumers.
The first-floor shop space will be a fairly expensive one for Apple to undertake, with documents from May mentioning an annual rent of 2.09 crore ($244,000) with rent rising by 15% every three years.
Apple also has to pay the landlord a 2% cut of store revenue for the first three years, after which it rises to 2.5%. There is an upper limit to this fee, namely twice the value of the main rent.
For the price, Apple does secure itself a zone of exclusivity. Apple supplied mall owners Sparkle One a list of competing companies that cannot lease space in the mall.
Increasing footprint
The store is the third for Apple in the country, but it's an important move for the company in the region. Bengaluru is home to a $2.6 billion plant builtby Foxconn, Apple's assembly partner.
In 2024, Apple moved into a new 15-story office in the city, which now holds teams working on customer support, operations, software engineering, and hardware technologies.
For Apple, India is an important territory for manufacturing, with iPhones bound for the United States this fall set to be made in the region.
It's also an important growth center for Apple, as it is gradually trying to improve its standing in an emerging market dominated by low-cost smartphones. The addition of a third retail store helps cement the fact that Apple will be working to grow its holdings in the country for quite some time to come.
