Apple is making inroads in taking over Samsung’s home turf. Well, sort of.
Cupertino is getting ready to open its second brick-and-mortar Apple store in South Korea, home to Samsung. The store will be located in the main finance district of Seoul, Korea’s capital city. Apple Yeouido is located in the upscale IFC Mall Seoul. No exact opening date has yet been announced.
A message posted on Apple’s dedicated webpage for the store notes that:
“South Korea’s second Apple Store is coming soon in the heart of vibrant, energetic Seoul. Apple Yeouido is designed as a space for everyone to grow their ideas and creativity. We hope that you will be able to unleash your imagination in this place where you can explore all possibilities, communicate with others, and receive the energy to create something that is not of this world.”
A link on the webpage lets users download wallpapers to celebrate the impending opening, along with offering a unique animation created to mark the event.
Another Apple Store in Korea
Apple’s first store opened in South Korea in 2018 in Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam district. When Apple began reopening its stores in Asia this year after the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the first store to resume operations.
Apple does good business in South Korea, where it also manufactures some hardware (such as iPhone camera modules). However, it has run into a few problems in the country in the past. For example, a few years ago, South Korean authorities raided Apple’s offices in Seoul, one day ahead of the launch of a new iPhone. Apple also faced a class-action lawsuit representing 370,000 individuals due to the purposeful slowdown of iPhones with aging batteries.
Nonetheless, the upcoming Seoul store shows how bullish Apple remains on the Korean market. 2020 hasn’t been a great year for Apple stores, as is the case with most brick-and-mortar outlets. Apple slowed down its store opening schedule (and even closed a store in one instance). The company clearly has some big plans for South Korea, though.
