Apple Inc is closing a retail store in China for the first time, signaling a notable retreat in a market where the iPhone maker is striving to revive sales.
The company on Monday said that it would shut its Parkland Mall store in the Zhongshan District of Dalian City on Saturday next week, citing a changing landscape at the shopping complex.
“We’re always focused on providing an exceptional experience for all of our customers both online and at more than 50 Apple Store locations across Greater China,” the Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement. “Given the departure of several retailers at the Parkland Mall, we have made the decision to close our store there.”
Photo: AFP
Apple has about 54 stores in China, Hong Kong and Macau, making up more than 10 percent of its footprint of more than 530 outlets globally. It has two stores in Taiwan, Apple Taipei 101 and Apple Xinyi A13 in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義).
The store that is closing is one of two locations in Dalian City. The other, a store at the Olympia 66 shopping complex, remains open. Employees at the site that is closing would be given opportunities to work elsewhere, the company said.
China is grappling with deflationary pressures as consumption wanes and global tariffs hurt exports, a major engine of the world’s No. 2 economy. Retail sales growth has fallen short of forecasts, and home prices dropped at a faster pace last month.
The company is opening a new store at Uniwalk Qianhai in Shenzhen on Aug. 16. It is also planning additional locations in Beijing and Shanghai over the next year, Bloomberg News has reported. It opened a store in Anhui Province in January.
The company is also expanding soon with new stores in Detroit, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India. A location in Japan’s Osaka opened on Saturday, and a major new flagship store debuted in Miami, Florida, in January. The company also opened its first store in Malaysia last year.
While Apple is still adding new stores, overall retail expansion has slowed since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Apple has instead focused on opening up its online retail store in new places, such as India and Saudi Arabia, and updating or moving older physical locations.
In related news, India has overtaken China to become the top source of smartphones sold in the US, after Apple shifted to assemble more of its iPhones in the South Asian country.
In the second quarter, India was the largest manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the US for the first time, accounting for 44 percent of the market, compared with 13 percent in the same period of last year, according to Canalys data.
Vietnam, home to much of Samsung Electronics Co’s production, came in second at 30 percent, up from 24 percent a year earlier, while China fell from having more than 60 percent of all estimated shipments a year ago to just 25 percent, Canalys data showed.
The stark change comes as Apple and its peers have been moving production beyond China and into countries such as India and Vietnam to mitigate risks related to tariffs and geopolitical tensions.
That has drawn the ire of US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing companies to add manufacturing in the US instead. Apple still makes most of its iPhones in China and has no smartphone production in the US — although it has promised to hire more workers at home and pledged to spend US$500 billion domestically over the next four years.
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