Apple has confirmed that it will open its first Southeast Asian retail store in Singapore. This follows shortly after joblistings for a Singapore based store leader and business manager appeared on the Apple website last week. Singapore comes as an easy choice for Apple to open its first store in Southeast Asia since Singapore is among the first countries to receive Apple’s new products.
Confirmation of the store’s existence came from an email from Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior Vice President for Retail and Online stores that was sent to TechCrunch. She, however, didn’t officially confirm the location of their future retail store. Interestingly, there has been rumours on where the Apple Retail Store may open. Pure Fitness, a fitness outlet located at Knightsbridge has stated that it and several other tenants are vacating the premises to make way for an Apple store in 2016.
Apple has also announced that all of it’s operations in Singapore will be powered by 100% renewable energy in the coming years. This was confirmed during a recent announcement of their partnership with Sunseap – the country’s largest clean energy provider – and the government of Singapore. Sunseap will be providing Apple with 33 MW of solar energy for its campus and their upcoming retail store. The clean energy provider is currently able to generate 50MW of solar energy by attaching solar panels to rooftops of more than 800 buildings. The amount of power generated will be enough to power 9000 homes. Similar initiatives is also done by Apple on their other operations in the U.S, Europe and China.
Currently, Apple has only been able to distribute their products to Southeast Asia through its online store, retail partners and local carriers. So opening their first retail store in Singapore may be Apple’s way of expanding their retail chain across other countries in Southeast Asia.
(Source: TechCrunch , Reuters)
