Apple is planning a massive 500 retail store expansion in India

Apple has been making a big push into China recently, but the company may be gearing up to go after another nearby market that’s just as promising. A new report from The Times of India reveals Cupertino’s plans to expand its network of reseller stores in an effort to target smaller towns and cities in India. In total, Apple apparently hopes to help open roughly 500 locations. The new stores would be managed locally, though presumably with some oversight from Apple, and focus on mobile devices. Each store could range in size from just 300-600 square feet to over 2,000 square feet in bigger cities.

Apple, the Cupertino-based world’s most valuable electronics maker, has decided to go big in India. After being on the fringes for long, the company is finally set to cut loose in the fast-growing Indian phone market. The world’s most admired electronics brand – that sells devices such as the iPhone, iPad tablet and iPod media player – plans 500 ‘iOS’ stores in the country in its first major push that will include moving into smaller towns and cities. The company, which recently topped $700 billion in market cap in the US, has been in India since 2011, but not been a mainline brand here like many other overseas markets, including China. This is in contrast to its Korean rival Samsung that dominates the Indian phone market. “All this will change now. The company is finalizing plans to become a serious player in India, which is being seen as a strategic and one of the most promising markets globally,” a top company source told TOI.