Apple is opening up in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Because even the tree pots were designed by Apple
Opening for business in a brand new market, Apple will introduce the Apple Store online in Saudi Arabia in summer 2025, with its first physical retail stores set to appear the following year, the company said. These will include an iconic retail store coming to Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
What Apple said
“We’re excited to be expanding here in Saudi Arabia with the launch of the Apple Store online next year, and the first of several flagship Apple Store locations starting in 2026, including an iconic store at the stunning site of Diriyah coming later,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“Our teams are looking forward to deepening our connections with customers, and to bringing the best of Apple to help people across this country explore their passions, build their businesses, and take their ideas to the next level.”
Building up the business
Apple’s retail expansion builds on its existing investments and activities in the country. This includes the region’s first Apple Developer Academy, which opened in Riyadh in 2021 in partnership with the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tuwaiq Academy, and Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University.
But perhaps most interesting investment (certainly a sign of what was coming) is Apple’s little-known investment in a new logistics zone in Riyadh, situated at King Khalid International Airport, which was revealed in 2022. At that time, we learned that the arrangement to place the logistics center there was reached as long ago as 2018, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited California and met with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Saudi Minister for Transport and Logistics, Saleh Al-Jasser, explained Apple’s investment as follows: “Apple will set up a regional distribution center in the zone, as part of its plans to establish an assembly line, along with maintenance services and light manufacturing going forward.”
More recently, Apple also hosted the country’s first coed Apple Foundation Program in 2024, a month long course in which students learned the fundamentals of coding and app development, with a focus on gaming.
The company has spent over 10 billion SAR with companies across the country across the last five years. The company also claims the app economy is growing, with earnings for developers in Saudi Arabia up over 1,750 percent since 2019.
Where the (virtual) money is…
With the opening of the new metro earlier this month, Riyadh joins over 250 cities where users can ride transit with Apple Pay. Riyadh is also the first city in the Middle East where users can ride the metro and buses with Express Mode. Apple claims that since the introduction of Apple Pay in Saudi Arabia in 2019, “Many Saudi customers have stopped using their plastic cards entirely.”
But the other subtexts to all of this conversation are use of Saudi Arabia as an additional logistics hub to support Apple’s business in India, and also the mind-bogglingly huge investments Saudi Arabia is already making in AI-driven smart cities. Cities in which Apple, quite evidently, wants to stake a claim.
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