Apple to launch its third Beijing store

Apple is stepping up its retail expansion in the mainland with the opening of its third branded store in Beijing on Saturday, three weeks after launching a new outlet in Hong Kong.

The latest Apple Store in the world's second-largest economy is at Beijing apm, a shopping mall and office complex built by Sun Hung Kai Properties and located in busy Wangfujing Street.

This will be the technology giant's eighth retail store in the China market, where it has three shops in Shanghai, two in Hong Kong and two other stores in Beijing.

Apple yesterday posted details of its latest store opening on the Apple China website. The store will take the number of Aple's branded stores to 386 in 13 countries.

"In the past 12 months, we have welcomed over 350 million people to our stores," Denny Tuza, Apple's retail market director for Greater China, said in Hong Kong last month.

An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the opening in Beijing, but declined to provide more facts about the store.

The first Apple Store in China was opened in July 2008 at Building 6 of The Village, a sprawling shopping complex in the popular Sanlitun area of Beijing's Chaoyang District.

The other is inside Joy City, a mall at North Xidan Avenue in the Xicheng District.

Apple, maker of the groundbreaking iPhone and iPad, has been quite slow in its store expansion across China, despite forecasting in 2010 that it would have 25 Apple Stores completed by the end of this year.

The mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau comprise Apple's second-largest market after its home patch in the United States.

Revenue in China reached US$5.7 billion in its fiscal third quarter ended June 30, up 48 per cent over the same period last year.