BEIJING — It looks almost exactly like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company’s logo chat with customers. Signs advertising the iPad 2 hang on the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words “Apple Store” — one of the few clues that the whole thing is a fake.
China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand-name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone — fake Apple stores.
An American who lives in Kunming in southern Yunnan province said Thursday that she and her husband stumbled on three shops masquerading as bona fide Apple stores in the city a few days ago. She took photos and posted them on her BirdAbroad blog.
But the three stores are not among the authorized resellers listed on Apple Inc.’s website. The maker of the iPhone and other hit gadgets has four company stores in China — two in Beijing and two in Shanghai — and various official resellers.
Amy Bessette, a spokeswoman for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company, said it had no comment on the Chinese stores but pointed to a Web page on Apple’s Chinese site that lists its authorized resellers. The Associated Press
