Mumbai: Consumer technology company Apple’s first retail store in the country became operational on Tuesday with chief executive Tim Cook opening its doors to customers.
Amid loud cheering, Cook emerged from inside the shop to open the doors and personally welcomed guests.
Long queues of Apple fans lined up to be the first ones in what is expected to be a massive two-story retail space housed inside the plush Jio World Drive Mall in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex.
The Mumbai store puts Apple on an ambitious drive in India, where the demand for its signature iPhone has finally picked up.
The design of the store put more emphasis on the Apple store as a public space or “town square” as the company likes to say.
Catering to a diverse country such as India, the Apple BKC store is staffed by a team of 100, that speak 20 languages between them.
The tech giant will follow this up with another store in Delhi’s Saket on April 20.
Apple could not open a store in India earlier because of regulatory restrictions around single-brand retail.