Apple Announces Expansion In Saudi Arabia And Promises IDR 42.1 Trillion Investment, Much Bigger Than Indonesia

JAKARTA - Apple on Sunday, December 8 announced its expansion plan in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by opening the Apple Online Store in 2025, followed by the opening of a physical store in 2026.

This move continues Apple's investment in Saudi Arabia, having previously opened a development academy in 2021. Starting in the summer of 2025, Apple will present an Apple Online Store that provides services and support in Arabic for the first time.

After the online store launch, Apple will open several physical stores, starting in 2026. One of the first planned locations is at Diriyah, the UNESCO world heritage site.

"We are excited to expand our presence in Saudi Arabia with the launch of the Apple Store online next year, as well as our first flagship store in 2026, including the iconic store on the Diriyah extraordinary site," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

"Our team is looking forward to strengthening relations with customers, and bringing in the best from Apple to help people in the country explore their interests, build businesses, and realize big ideas," he added.

This expansion is part of Apple's great efforts in Saudi Arabia. In the last five years, the company has invested more than 10 billion SAR (Rp42.1 trillion) in the country. In addition, application developer revenue in Saudi Arabia through the App Store has increased by more than 1750% since 2019.

Apple will also provide transit express support for the soon-to-be-launching Riyadh metro, making Riyadh one of the more than 250 cities supporting the feature.

The investments made in Saudi Arabia are certainly far greater than those offered to Indonesia. Previously, the Minister of Investment of the Republic of Indonesia, Roeslan Roeslani, said that Apple would meet these requirements by building a new factory worth US$1 billion (Rp15.8 trillion). In addition, Roeslan also revealed plans to increase the percentage of local components, although he has not mentioned the exact figures or the implementation schedule.

Until now, Apple has not provided an official statement regarding the factory's construction plan. In fact, since Apple CEO, Tim Cook, stated that he would "consider" investment in Indonesia, there has been no concrete follow-up from the company.

Previously, Apple had offered a symbolic investment of 10 million US dollars to overcome the ban on the iPhone 16. This offer included the fulfillment of previous investment commitments. However, the Indonesian government rejected the offer, even rejecting the proposed continuation of 100 million US dollars (Rp1.58 trillion) which was submitted for a period of two years.