Confirmation of an Apple Store opening in Prague may be premature

Last evening, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš cryptically tweeted that “Apple is looking for employees for the Prague Store,” linking to an August 21 job vacancy posted on the official Apple website.

Babiš is hoping to make good on a old promise: it’s been eighteen bitter months since the Prime Minister promised an Apple Store would be coming to Prague after he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook in January of 2019.

Well, that’s the name for the Apple-authorized and implemented physical locations inside of third-party retailers around the globe.

Locally, you can find an official Apple Shop inside the Alza showroom in Holešovice, with all the products laid across those big wooden tables just like a real Apple Store. Squint a little and you wouldn’t even know you weren’t inside the real thing.

Presumably, this is what the Apple job posting refers to. Positions for Apple Shop Leader are also open in other European countries without an official Apple Store.

Still, an official Apple Store opening in the Prague is inevitable, and likely already on its way. Especially if the Czech Prime Minister has anything to say about it; he usually getshis way.

Last year, Forbes reported that Apple had leased 5,000 square meters of space in the new Flow building on Wenceslas Square, which was still under construction at the time.

This won’t be the site of a new Apple Store in Prague: Irish discount chain Primark has an exclusive agreement to be the only retailer on the ground floor in the new building. But 5,000 square meters in an expensive new building is nothing to sneeze at.

At the time, Forbes speculated that Apple might be intending to move their regional corporate headquarters from a not-ideal location in Budapest to the heart of Prague. And with construction on the Flow building now finished and Primark slated to open at the location in the coming months, that’s something that could happen sometime soon.