Scores of people queued up at Delhi's Select Citywalk Mall in Saket early Thursday morning, before most stores had opened, to witness the opening of India's second Apple Store by the tech giant's CEO Tim Cook. Mr Cook welcomed customers and was seen clicking photographs with the fans at 10 am.
Located in South Delhi, the barricade for Apple Saket features a unique design that takes inspiration from Delhi's many gates. However, the Saket store is smaller than the Apple Store opened in Jio World Drive at Bandra Kurla Complex on Tuesday.
The Apple Saket store in Delhi is half the size of the Mumbai store where the company will pay a portion of total sales from the store as rent or Rs 40 lakh per month, whichever is higher, according to news agency PTI.
The company has more than 70 retail team members at Saket store, who has come from 18 states of India and collectively speak more than 15 languages.
Mr Cook during his visit met Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the iPhone manufacturer is looking to invest more in the world's second-largest smartphone market.
According to government sources, the iPhone maker is likely to double the employment base at its contract manufacturers in India to around 2 lakh soon.
Mr Cook, on his first trip to India in seven years, opened Apple's first official retail store in the country in Mumbai on Tuesday. He had last visited India in 2016 when the tech giant was just beginning to scale up operations in the country.
Looking to replicate what China did to Apple's business in the last 15 years, the tech giant is eyeing India's massive market with an expanding middle class to power sales growth, and potentially make it a home base for the production of millions of Apple devices.
Mr Cook during his visit met Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar. According to sources, he has sought government support to widen its components supplier base in India and discussed manufacturing facilities and app design and development accelerator in Bengaluru with both ministers.
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