Apple will finish off the month of September—and its fourth fiscal quarter—with a big grand opening push, opening six stores on four continents in two days. Last July Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer pledged that 30 new stores would open by September 30th, and with this week’s grand openings, the number of new stores will total 27. Besides the IFC Mall (Hong Kong) and Nanjing East (Shanghai) store openings reported here earlier, the company will hold grand openings at Westfield Hornsby (Australia), Centro Sicilia (Italy), New Haven (Conn.) and Metrotown (Canada). The Hornsby location will be that country’s 13th, while Centro Silcilia will be Europe’s southern-most location. The New Haven store is uniquely located next to the remodeled Yale University bookstore, and the Metrotown store will add coverage to the very busy eastern region of Vancouver. Up to five other additional stores could open before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. Those new stores might include locations in Canada, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Update: And one more! The Parly 2 (France) retail store will also open on Saturday, in the western suburb of Le Chesnay near the Palace of Versailles. The store will be the fifth store to serve customers in the Paris region.
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Wow, the New Haven store is done already? Last time I drove by there, probably a month ago, it was still just a demoed space. No walls even.
Is there maybe some more info about the Amsterdam store? Earlier i heard that the opening was postponed to 2012… but nobody is sure…
Yup… the New Haven store is coming along. Yesterday we saw the Apple logo unveiled… and then quickly covered in black cloth.
The Apple Store that will open in Italy is actually in the city of Catania. “Centro Sicilia” is just the name of the mall.
You mention at the end that of the five stores that may open before US thanksgiving Canada might see another store. Do you have any information on where that store might be? It looks like all of the stores on the jobs page are open except metrotown
Here’s a photo from yesterday (9/19/11) of the New Haven Apple Store:
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2632/applestoreyalenewhavenc.jpg
There were a lot of construction workers there. The scaffolding was being dismantled, the crane was lowering pieces in, and a plate glass truck showed up near the end of the day. Also saw an illuminated Genius Bar sign on rear wall.
We need an Apple Mall… :P
WIth the cash the Apple has on hand they could do that easily. Build their own malls, just have retailers that bring in potential Apple customers and keep out Microsoft stores. Then grow this into a separate real estate firm and spin it off. Before you laugh, McDonalds did this. Then they used it as a cover when they needed excuses. Oh, that was a historic property? We were just looking for a restaurant location. If there is a complaint, talk to the real estate company.
In early August I peeked through the crack between the double doors on the black construction barricade to see a brightly lit dusty area. Some scaffolding but not much new construction. Smart Set torn down. No Apple URL and logo on the barricade. I went by Monday September 19 at 5 p.m. to see black floor to ceiling panels. White Apple logo and http://www.apple.com/ca on the right side.
I did not have a camera. The area in front was roped off for men applying floor tiles. I could see through the cracks of the panels people moving and a lit Genius Bar sign on the back wall.
Apple Store, Metrotown is in the UG section on the Upper Level between A/X Armani Exchange and Lululemon Athletica. This morning I got an e-mail from News_Canada@InsideApple.Apple.com
“Introducing the Apple Store, Metrotown. Join us for our grand opening September 24 at 10:00 a.m.”
http://www.apple.com/ca/retail/metrotown/ shows the same time. The mall doors open at 7:30 a.m.
Wow, that’s a lot of stores! It seems the ones in China are the most massive.
Thank you for the netherlands! IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME APPPLE!
The Real Estate team at Apple have a target of 50 stores for this fiscal year. There are going to be some pretty disappointed people internally at the end of this one.
Here at Apple Store, Metrotown opening in Burnaby, BC. It is more than twice as big as Pacific Centre. At 7:15 a.m. I was 18th in line. First person came at 5:30 a.m.
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