We’ve known for a while that Apple is developing a new retail in Hong Kong and now the store has been given an official launch date, after the company revealed it will open its doors on September 29.
The information for the Festival Walk-based store is up on the Apple Hong Kong website, as spotted by 9toMac, as the US tech giant moves into the final stages of launching the second Apple Store in the country.
Hong Kong is notable for being included in the initial wave of markets where the iPhone 5 has debuted for the first time. That has led to Chinese scalpers boasting that they were able to deliver the flagship phone into the hands of customers late on Friday, the same day that it launched.
The new store will be located across the harbor from downtown Hong Kong island, where Apple’s first store in the city is. That location opened in the IFC mall last fall. At the time, the 15,000 square-foot spot was Apple’s most expensive store, costing more than $20 million to build.
Apple has plenty of room to expand in Hong Kong. Its store was the site of a near mob there last November as scalpers turned out en masse to be first to buy the iPhone 4S.
The region is also serving as a staging area for Apple to get its products across the border into mainland China earlier than usual. For instance, the third-generation iPad launched in Hong Kong from day one. As a result, some Chinese scalpers that normally would have flown to the US for the launch instead went to Hong Kong.
As part of a continuing cat-and-mouse game between Apple and grey-market resellers, the company has instituted a reserve and pickup system for product launches in Hong Kong and mainland China, where it operates five retail stores.
Image via Getty Images / Philippe Lopez
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