In a letter posted on Apple’s website yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company’s retail stores worldwide (except in Greater China) will be closed to help curb the spread of COVID-19. However, that does not apply to its stores in India, simply because Apple does not own any retail stores here. Instead, the company sells through what it calls Apple Premium Resellers (APR), who are third parties with their own rules.
“We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27. We are committed to providing exceptional service to our customers. Our online stores are open at www.apple.com, or you can download the Apple Store app on the App Store. For service and support, customers can visit support.apple.com. I want to thank our extraordinary Retail teams for their dedication to enriching our customers’ lives. We are all so grateful to you,” Cook wrote in his post.
This includes stores like Future World, Imagine etc. which are individual brands authorised by Apple to sell its products. The company does not have the power to tell those stores to shut down, though they will still have to adhere to government regulations. So, in places like Mumbai, where the government has announced a shutdown of stores, these retailers will have to shut down.
The iPhone maker has taken a hit, of sorts, from the Coronavirus outbreak in China. One of its largest manufacturing bases in China was in the originally affected regions and had to be shutdown for an extended period. There have also been reports that Apple will have to push the launch of the iPhone 12 because of supply shortages happening due to COVID-related shutdowns. Not only that, the expected iPhone SE2 launch, which was scheduled later this month, had to be postponed as well.
Further, the company also announced yesterday that its yearly developer conference, the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) will be an online-only event now. This is a trend being followed by most technology companies in order to avoid mass gatherings during this period.
