More than 300 people camped overnight for the grand opening of Apple’s first store in Hong Kong. Some camped out for two days to be among the first inside the new flagship store.
Here’s what the store looks like, plus a video report of the grand opening:
The store is in the high-end International Financial Center Mall. Here’s the web page for the store, known as IFC Mall.
The new store is two stories high with a glass spiral staircase connecting the floors. The store has an unusual shape. It is shallow and wide — about 35 feet deep and 90 feet wide. The massive front windows offer a view of the city. The Apple logo hanging in the window is the largest in the world, according to store expert Gary Allen of IFOAppleStore.
It is Apple’s most expensive yet. Construction is estimated at $20 million.
Before the opening, staff allowed fans to camp inside the mall. The local Starbucks stayed open all night. By 3 a.m. on Saturday morning, more than 300 customers had lined up outside the store, according to Engadget Chinese.
Here’s some more video of the opening and enthusiastic, noisy crowd from Engadget:
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
20 responses to “Woah! Check Out The Massive Crowds For Apple’s First Hong Kong Store”
I’m impressed by the engineering! That has to be hung from above without cross bracing, no way the glass part of the structure can be supported from below. No place to be in an earthquake.
That aside, the cultish applauding of customers, just for entering the store, is just creepy IMHO.
It is like the Hare Krishna have incorporated.
You can tell this is the company that was born out of acid and Californian baby boomers.
I find it interesting that Apple users are so often described as cultists, religious fanatics, trendy elitists or mindless drones who want to look cool. These comments come almost exclusively from non-Apple users who can’t understand what all the excitement is about. After all, they know that the technology they’re used to is rather dull, pendantic and tedious, so those Apple users must just be crazy, stupid, high or brainwashed. Having this viewpoint tends to settle their minds and accept the mediocrity they’re used to.
almost as if they dont understand why people like Apple products…it is a bit ridiculous
I have been an avid Apple user for 27 years now.
Doesn’t mean my brain has been removed with a spoon and replaced with corporate Spakfilla.
It would seem to me as if those customers are just having a good time. I don’t see what’s so creepy about that. People cheer at sports events and do high-fives if their team is winning or scores points. People camp out to get tickets for concerts if they like certain musicians. It looks to be nothing more than camaraderie with consumers that have the same things in common. Apple products. Are all those consumers fanatical? I doubt it. Some certainly are, though.
Most of those people are probably out there to buy something and I guess they want to make sure they get it. If I had nothing better to do, I might camp out a night just to socialize if the weather is pleasant. I think you’d need to ask individuals why they like to be treated like their someone special when going to an Apple store. It’s good for some people’s ego to be clapped and cheered at. Nothing at all like going to a Best Buy store or Walmart where nobody gives a damn about the customer. Whatever the motive behind the clapping and cheers, it would appear to be working very well for Apple. The stores are pulling in customers like crazy.
Very nice indeed, robots…
Is this really newsworthy? Anyone still interested in footage of a shop being opened?
Yeah, fat losers with poor education and low self esteem need to buy affection.
And there are plenty of corporations out there who will do it if you just hand over your credit card.
I used to love being with fellow Apple Users, they really were many times exceptional people.
Now all you have to do is buy the merchandising and make sure the logo is facing outwards. For some not as easy as it sounds.
Sometimes people just post to see their words someplace where people will talk to them. These people sit behind their keyboards laughing and mocking us for being “cultish” and “creepy” yet they are the ones who never leave the confines of their own loneliness and are crying out for human interaction. I don’t get upset with these internet trolls, but simply pity them. Example? Look right below….
What doesnt draw a crowd in Hong Kong. I’m an avid Appld user but find these types if articles useless.
I really enjoy posts about different Apple stores. I love to see the different architecture. :D