Interface News Reporter | Wu Yangyu
Interface News Editor | Song Jianan
Three days later, the Apple Jing'an retail store located at 1699 Nanjing West Road, Shanghai is about to open. This is also the company’s 57th Apple Store in Greater China and the 8th Apple Store in Shanghai.
The latest retail store is surrounded by traffic. If you go to this new location and look down from a high place, you can feel Apple's determination for the Chinese market.
Image source: Apple
The new store stands opposite the quaint Jing'an Temple, perfectly embedded in the sunken square. The stepped hyperboloid wall extends forward to form a circular theater. The center of this 30.4-meter-long curved glass curtain wall is the entrance to the retail store. The circular ceiling and display tables in the
store are all made of wood, and are combined with gray floors, walls and columns. The overall look is as simple as ever. In the center of the ceiling is an artificial lighting dome that can automatically adjust the color temperature. The eight columns surrounding the atrium space were retained by Apple from its original location.
Picture source: Photo by reporter
Similar to most of the company's retail stores, the building here also has two floors, but based on the special theater-style structure, consumers can have an overview of the entire store whether on the first or second floor. Nothing left.
There are 12 and 11 display tables upstairs and downstairs respectively, which are arranged in a symmetrical manner. On them are familiar products such as iPhone, iPad, MacBook, etc. There are still a few tables that are still empty, and it is assumed that they will be filled with vision pro in the near future.
Picture source: Photo by reporter
Apple retail store’s special event “today at apple” is held in the atrium downstairs. This forum interactive forum can accommodate dozens of consumers to experience the course. Apple pickup for customers who order online and pick up goods offline is set up in the upper right area.
Picture source: Photo by reporter
Apple has opened a boardroom in the left area of the upper floor. This is a brand new space in the Apple store, designed to provide personal advice and training for entrepreneurs, developers and other small and medium-sized enterprise customers. According to Zhou Yixuan, director of Apple's retail business in East China, the team has previously served thousands of business customers.
Apple has prepared a team of more than 150 employees for this rumored flagship store with the highest specifications in China. More than 80% of them have worked in 27 Apple stores in different cities in China, and nearly one-third of the employees From Shanghai local.
Picture source: Photo by reporter
In July 2010, Apple's first retail store in Shanghai "Apple Pudong" opened. In the past 14 years, Apple's seven retail stores in Shanghai have received more than 160 million customers. The opening of the new
store will be a new starting point for Apple.
Since the release of the iPhone 15 series in September last year, the world's largest smartphone supplier's sales in China have been underestimated by various market research institutions, with some single-month sales declining by double digits. At the same time, the Apple store has always been regarded as a very representative "work" by Apple. Factors including location, design, layout, color, material, personnel, etc. have all gone through rigorous screening and preparation. It is Apple's One of the heavy assets with considerable investment.
Against this background, Apple not only did not shrink, but also increased its layout in the Chinese retail market, indicating that it has judged the potential growth possibilities.
The intensity of competition Apple faces at this moment cannot be underestimated. In the past few years, as domestic mobile phone manufacturers have struggled to catch up and the innovation of iPhone has declined, Apple's dominance in the high-end smartphone market has been difficult to say stable.
Although iPhone still helped it end four consecutive fiscal quarters of year-on-year revenue declines, in Greater China, the company's first fiscal quarter revenue decreased by 13% from the previous year, becoming Apple's only regional market to decline.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri once said: "We are not satisfied with this decline, but we know that China is the most competitive market in the world."
Picture source: Photo by reporter
As one of the technology companies with the highest market value in the world and the expectation of more shareholders, Apple's retail strategy cannot be too cautious.
According to Reuters, Apple recently agreed to pay US$490 million. To settle a class action lawsuit accusing Apple CEO Tim Cook of concealing the fact that demand for iPhones in the Chinese market was declining. The case dates back to January 2019, when Apple revised its quarterly revenue forecast It was lowered by up to 9 billion U.S. dollars. This move caused the company's stock price to plummet 10% the next day, and the market value shrank by 74 billion U.S. dollars.
The Chinese market five years later is already different from the past. The pressure faced by Apple has not become smaller, but has become more severe. getting bigger and bigger.
’s opening up of new retail space and the launch of vision pro may be an effective attempt for the company to maintain freshness in the Chinese market. But to achieve sustained growth in overall revenue, the release of all hardware products The strong appeal is more important.
