Apple to reopen store in South Korea
Apple's retail store in South Korea will be reopened on Saturday. It will be the first Apple store outside of Greater China to resume operations since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Cupertino updated the homepage of its single store in Seoul yesterday to notify customers that it would re-open at 12pm Korea Standard Time on April 18.
Last month, Apple said it had plans to reopen some stores at the beginning of April. At the time, the company had closed all of its retail stores globally, outside of Greater China, to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Its store in South Korea was closed on March 15 following the decision.
The reopening coincides with Apple's unveiling of its new iPhone SE budget smartphone earlier this week, which becomes available for pre-order on Friday.
Apple's Chinese stores were reopened last month after being closed back in February.
South Korea commenced its parliamentary elections on Wednesdays. To protect citizens against contracting COVID-19, the government applied various prevention measures onto the polling stations.
Meanwhile, schools across the nation have also begun to reopen in two phases, partially last week and completely on Thursday. Some 4 million students are attending online classes remotely from home with only faculty members physically going to work.
South Korea is also planning to deploy electronic wristbands to strengthen its ability to enforce quarantine measures after people repeatedly violations.
As of Friday, South Korea has over 10,600 COVID-19 cases with 230 dead, but the rate of infection per day has been falling since the start of the month.