Apple's First Turkish Store Opens to Press, Tim Cook Won't Attend Grand Opening

[balcis]

still allowed to own personal computers in Turkey ?? -_-

Only if we also have camels, dude.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

when Twitter, Facebook and Youtube are blocked.

An internet without Twitter, Facebook and Youtube...


actually, sounds nice.


...and this store looks nicer than the "flagship" shoebox in San Francisco. Well done, Turkey.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Would love to see an Apple Store in Green Bay, WI. Right now I have to travel 2-3 hours to get to a Apple Store. We are the 3rd largest city in Wisconsin so no reason we shouldn't have one.

Just googled, wow 100k population !! What a metropolis !!!

Even if could somehow get 100% marketshare there it would still not be remotly enough to substain an applestore.

 

[KimJonNumberUn]

I live in Istanbul and I personally didn't like the store. It didn't live up to my expectations but then again I had really high expectations.

The mall in which the Apple Store is located has pretty low ceilings and going around on the inside is not very pleasant, it feels squashed. The mall was expected to be the next big thing in the city where everyone would frequently visit, it had incredibly high rents and a buzz around it but the expected hype just didn't happen. Apple Store is seen as the last resort to save the entire mall, luring customers in it. So just like ShangHai or 5th Avenue stores, I thought it would use that open space for entrance to compensate for that squashed feeling by entering from the outside, open air. However it turns out it's just used as a way of bringing in natural light. I even expected a glass dome entrance being a reference to all the historic mosques of the city.

On the inside the mall still feels squashed, the store has two stories, both walls covered with glass much like the new Palo Alto Store and the new planned San Francisco Union Square store. I can't be exactly sure as of now though because I haven't actually seen it yet. I'll see it tomorrow at the opening and make my definitive decision.

Nonetheless, the store opening and Apple officially incorporating in Turkey means a lot of things;
-Products launching at the same time with the rest of the world.
-Reasonable prices were brought in with the official online Apple store a few months ago, now other electronics stores can't and won't sell Apple products with giant premiums making it even more expensive.
-Apple products bought from all over the world are now covered with the 1 year global guarantee. Also, we can buy Apple Care, have genius bars, one to one services etc.
-Apple will reach to masses, not the geeks who have proficiency in English that are following Apple related news.
-Turkey is a developing economy with close to 80 million population, of which mostly are under 30, with a lot of tourist potential from Middle East considering the culture and geographic advantage. So it has a lot of sales potential for Apple, they could use it as a Middle East, Western Asia and Balkans hub just like Coca-Cola Company and many others do.

I think it'll be good considering they plan to open 5 stores in Turkey in 3 different cities by the end of 2015. Hopefully they can do great job here. I love iTunes Music store and the online store that opened a few months ago.

Regarding the political discussion about Turkey's latest internet scandal;

Bans on twitter and youtube were lifted twitter being yesterday and youtube being today with the rule of constitutional higher court. The government didn't have any legal basis on blocking them and it's unacceptable, they are just jokes that still can manage to get the votes of the uneducated unfortunate majority who only cares if they can find food money or not. Also, their main complaint was Twitter and YouTube not taking them seriously on some complaints that is allegedly against the law in Turkey. Their argument is, when the UK or the USA does file such complaints they immediately respond and do what's necessary whereas Turkey is considered a 3rd world country that is not taken seriously.

They are issues to deeply discuss so I will leave it there. Just know that Turkey would never become Iran, North Korea, Chine or the likes of them. It has a very secular 40% and has democracy in it's foundation. It couldn't even be compared to those countries. It is corrupt just like most of the other states, maybe more than other states but it doesn't make its people any less reputable, in fact latest events should make its people even more admired.

More like doing more bad then good, making the people their in poverty more poverished

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Just googled, wow 100k population !! What a metropolis !!!

wat. 100k? That might be the actual city proper, but theres gotta be a couple million in the hideous urban sprawl & bedroom communities that surround it. It's a zoo. ...but it is a bit... old industrial. Not sure that's a happening market.

As far as the big black holes on our map go, Apple would probably do better in the young, touristy progressive Duluth, serving northern wisconsin & minnesota both, & picking up the students from all the northern colleges, Marquette, Ashland, Duluth, all across the north shore.

...outside of cities, what people consider "local" occupies a much bigger area on the map. We think nothing of making the 5hr round trip to Duluth at least once a week, & consider it "in town". So going by metropolitan area populations isn't going to give anyone an accurate representation of the size of the market in those areas.

 

[LevMac]

Wow what a nice store!!

Does anyone have a link to the official "hero" image of this Istanbul store that Apple normally takes of their stores? I.e. High Resolution photo

 

[jeremysteele]

Just googled, wow 100k population !! What a metropolis !!!

Even if could somehow get 100% marketshare there it would still not be remotly enough to substain an applestore.

Wow, what?

Apple has stores in smaller cities all over. Just in New York state: Syracuse NY (population ~150k), Albany (~95k), etc.

And as ThunderSkunk said -

You are looking at the raw city population and not the metro population (a far more accurate measurement, since many people travel into cities but don't live in them). In that case, green bay is around 300k. Plenty big enough.

Ignoring the metro population is just silly.

------

Apple also has small stores all over the place, oftentimes in malls. Apple, fortunately, hires people who look at the big picture and can scale their stores to size.

 

[Swift]

Whoa

This was planned years ago, I'm sure. There is a big market there, and Apple will be glad to sell iPhones to the Turks or anyone else. I don't know the reason why Cook wouldn't go. But the fact that there are demonstrations in the streets, Facebook and Twitter blocking, probably had something to do with it. Opening an Apple Store is meant to be a big treat. A nice special occasion. When the civil peace is compromised, a Western businessman may become a target, appearing in a store with Turkish officials might be interpreted as an endorsement of the latest measures.

 

[mojolicious]

I don't know the reason why Cook wouldn't go.

Not sure what the presence of a CEO adds to an opening, particularly a CEO as anonymous as Cook.

I don't believe he attended the opening of the Apple Store in Rio de Janeiro in February – the first Apple Store in Latin America.

There's also nothing to suggest that Steve Jobs attended either of the following events...
Tokyo 2003: first Apple Store outside of US
London 2004: first Apple Store in Europe
...although obviously he was in poor health at time.

 

[Bug-Creator]

You are looking at the raw city population and not the metro population (a far more accurate measurement, since many people travel into cities but don't live in them). In that case, green bay is around 300k. Plenty big enough.

Still just a spec on the map.....

There are just 3 Apple stores in NRW (German federal state I live in) serving 17 million people (probraly over 20 if you count customers coming in from Belgium and the Netherlands).

Just to get a perspective, Apple would need >1000 stores just in the US if 300k people would be seen as big enough.

 

[emir]

This was planned years ago, I'm sure. There is a big market there, and Apple will be glad to sell iPhones to the Turks or anyone else. I don't know the reason why Cook wouldn't go. But the fact that there are demonstrations in the streets, Facebook and Twitter blocking, probably had something to do with it. Opening an Apple Store is meant to be a big treat. A nice special occasion. When the civil peace is compromised, a Western businessman may become a target, appearing in a store with Turkish officials might be interpreted as an endorsement of the latest measures.

Civil peace is not compromised. It's not like it is in Ukraine, in fact its no where near that. There has been a few protests over the course of almost a year now but its not like a civil riot or anything. There were elections last week and the protested party still managed to get 40% of the votes.

I think the Apple Store will attract Middle-eastern, Russian and Balkanian(?) tourists. Apple did well to attract a large group, Istanbul alone has a population of 15 million. Besides, they are said to open their second Turkish store in the asian side of Istanbul this year, and they will open stores in Izmir (city across Athens) Ankara(capital of Turkey) by the end of 2015. Only thing I'm upset about is them opening stores in malls. I would have loved an authentic old building city store like the ones in Barcelona or Amsterdam. If history is what you seek for that, Istanbul has thousands of years of history. I just don't get why they prefer malls. Especially a mall as bad as, as a disappointment as the Zorlu Center in which they opened the first one yesterday.

 

[ruipedro]

Apple Store in Turkey.

Another beautiful Apple Store.

Hope that one will come soon to Lisbon.

 

[jeremysteele]

Still just a spec on the map.....

There are just 3 Apple stores in NRW (German federal state I live in) serving 17 million people (probraly over 20 if you count customers coming in from Belgium and the Netherlands).

Just to get a perspective, Apple would need >1000 stores just in the US if 300k people would be seen as big enough.

Why in the heck do you think Apple would want to cover 100% of the population? In the US (with its widely distributed population - much more than Germany) it would put them out of business. They hit major markets where people use their stuff - AKA: cities that are Apple friendly.

The US isn't pockets of 300,000 people here and there. It is pockets of 2 million people, with towns of 1-5,000 people for the next few hundred miles, followed by another major metro (perhaps 200,000 people) followed by more small towns for dozens of miles, etc. They hit the major hubs (where they can make a profit). No reason for them to cover the entire population (all those small towns)

Less stores, but in major markets = higher profit margin than many stores in every market, due to less physical upkeep.

And remember - the US has a very widely distributed population (a little over half live in cities, which mean the other half live in the 90+% remaining landmass). A major market here may only have 200,000 people... which is plenty big enough to support a properly scaled store. Retail planning here is a much different beast than a country such as Germany - which enjoys a high population for its small land-mass.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

 

[furi0usbee]

Hope that's blast-resistant glass... just sayin'...

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All glass store?? Oh man all it takes is one rock (or one unsatisfied customer's bricked iPhone) and the whole store comes crashing down. Unless it's made of sapphire. Maybe that's where all the sapphire is going.

And many people over there love throwing stones btw...

 

[LevMac]

Does anyone have a high resolution "hero" image of this store yet?

 

[moxin]

wow beautiful store for the beautiful country.

 

[bdkennedy1]

He wouldn't be caught dead there.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Actually, unfortunately, it works like crap when Twitter, Facebook and Youtube are blocked.

I lived in China for 8 years. The number of websites that include "tweet" and "like" buttons, embed youtube videos, "use Facebook or Twitter to login", etc etc is very high. At in China, when a page starts to download an asset from one of those sites (a like button, some javascript for liking, etc) the whole loading process grinds to a halt until it times out after like 1 min. Massively painful. And obviously you can't use FB or Twitter credentials to login to websites.

Even when I wasn't going to FB, Twitter, Youtube, I basically had to get on a VPN just to have something even close to a reasonable browsing experience.

Last time I was in China I just used a VPN and had no issues with any sites being blocked?

 

[mikejcsauer]

Just googled, wow 100k population !! What a metropolis !!!

Even if could somehow get 100% marketshare there it would still not be remotly enough to substain an applestore.

If you're going to be a douche to the guy, at least use the right word.


SUSTAIN. Not Substain...that's not even a word.

Yep, I made an account just to correct you.

 

[macintoshi]

Yeah am sure turkish muslim people like it, coz it looks like future mekka. Apple should have made it round or a triangle...