Nearest Apple Store. Prague will get a new iconic Apple store
When the long-awaited building by the famous architect Zaha Hadid next to the Masaryk railway station in Prague arrives, you will also be able to buy the latest iPhone and other Apple products in it. A new apple store will open in the glass building, which is to become a local landmark, which is so close to the iconic Apple Stores that you might not know that it is not an official Apple Store except for the logo above the door. iStyle, which has now opened a brand new store in Chodov and hinted at how the one in Masaryčka will look, is moving to an architecturally attractive location.
The fact that an Apple Store, the official store of the most valuable company in the world, which usually builds in the most lucrative and architecturally interesting places, could be built in the Czech Republic has been talked about for many years. Sometimes there is news that causes such speculation, such as when, for example, then Prime Minister Andrej Babiš wrote on Twitter that he offered Apple boss Tim Cook during a personal meeting to build such a store in Prague. However, it never made it from words to actions, and even now it is practically clear that there will not be an official Apple store here in the coming years.
“We are planning to open one of the other stores on Masaryčka in the center of Prague, and if Apple were to open its own Apple Store here in the foreseeable future, it would probably not allow us to do so,” stated Vít Goluch, general manager of iStyle, on the eve of the opening of the new store in the Westfield Chodov shopping center. It is for the very first time that it is bringing a store called Apple Premium Partner to the Czech Republic and the entire region. There are only a few of them around the world so far, and this is a new status that means an even closer connection with Apple. In the Czech Republic, iStyle has held the status of Apple Premium Reseller until now.
“The fact that we were the first in Central and Eastern Europe to obtain the status of an Apple Premium Partner region and thus bring an Apple flagship store to the Czech Republic is a great success and a step forward for us. Fourteen years ago, as iStyle, we stood at the very entry of the Apple brand into the Czech market. That’s why I’m proud to once again be the one to take the experience of buying an Apple device to a whole new level.” says Vít Goluch. A new store with this status opens in the Westfield Chodov shopping center today.
New Apple Premium Partner store from iStyle in Chodov
While Apple allowed its partners a freer hand in Apple Premium Reseller sales, the Apple Premium Partner status is much stricter. It concerns, for example, the exact number of employees, their movement and functioning within the store. The designer round tables are shipped by Apple directly from the USA, and they are very similar to them, but for the official Apple Story, they only retain a slightly more premium quality. The modular stone floor comes from Italy, other conceptual furniture from Germany.
Nevertheless, customers should also have an experience in the new iStyle store similar to that in the Apple Store. On the tables, which are scattered over an area of more than 250 square meters, an offer of products from iPhones to iPads and MacBooks to the Apple Watch awaits them, and on the walls you can see accessories. More numerous and the staff should attend to them. An authorized service center for Apple products will also be on site, and there will be regular training sessions and open workshops for the public – activities that are normally held at Apple Stores. Specialists for the needs of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs and companies will also be available.
But even more interesting are iStyle’s plans for the future. Gradually, he wants to upgrade most of his sales, of which he currently has ten in the Czech Republic, to Apple Premium Partner status, as well as at least one brand new one. This time it will not be in any department store, but in a lucrative location within the Masaryčka project, which Penta Real Estate is building near the Masaryk railway station in Prague. It is a unique architectural project by world-renowned architects from Zaha Hadid’s studio. A new store with Apple products will be built here next to offices and a number of other shops and restaurants.
However, contrary to some previous speculations, it will not be an official Apple Store. Among other things, these rumors stirred up one of the visualizations of the upcoming building, on which the Apple logo was placed at the front of the store, which is traditionally characterized by the presence of the Apple Store. At the time, it was only a visualization, however, according to information from CzechCrunche, Apple devices will eventually move into the corner space, which will be completely glazed and have two floors, within the next Apple Premium Partner store from iStylu. He does not want to talk too much about the details yet, but he confirms the plans to build this store. Completion of the construction is planned for the second half of 2023.
![masarycka-apple](https://cc.cz/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/masarycka-apple-815x543.jpg)
In these locations in the new building near Masaryka, he is to have an iStyle store
Apple itself does not reveal its plans at all. Even the general manager of iStylu, Vít Goluch, does not want to speak for him, but in the quote above he quite clearly indicated that we will not see an official Apple Store in the near future. He was alluding to Apple’s internal policy, which has strict rules for building its own flagship store, and which has yet to be fulfilled in Prague. On the one hand, Apple searches for the most visited places, of which there are only a few in the capital, the most talked about are the Old Town or Wenceslas Square. At the same time, there must not be any other stores with Apple products in the vicinity, with which the Prague center is interwoven.
Apple also usually has a greater presence in those markets in general, for example in terms of availability or localization of selected products. There is still no need for the Czech voice assistant Siri in the Czech Republic, which is understandable given the globally marginal importance of the Czech language. Because of this, Homepod speakers, for example, are not sold, which would therefore be missing from the Apple Store. Although Apple has a relatively large development center in the Czech Republic and several other departments located in the new Flow building on Wenceslas Square, it does not yet consider the Czech Republic to be important enough to open a flagship Apple Store here.
Thanks to this, iStyle and other players such as iWant, iStores and iSetos are constantly growing here. iStyle itself today has branches in Brno, Ostrava and Ústí nad Labem in addition to Prague. In 2021, the company exceeded the turnover of 2.7 billion crowns, despite the fact that its retail sales were closed for four months due to anti-pandemic measures. In 2022, iStyle aims for a turnover of 3.5 billion crowns. After Chodov, he wants to upgrade the existing stores in the Palladium Prague, Brno Vaňkovka and Centrum Černý Most centers to Apple Premium Partner status. The next one will probably be the brand new Masaryčka.