China’s next Apple Store will open its doors on Friday

Beijingers, rejoice – China’s next Apple store opens for business this Friday at a newly-built location in China Central Place Shopping Center in the Chaoyang District, according to a new notice on Apple’s official China website (hat-tip Macrumours).

What’s it look like? At the moment, no official pictures have surfaced, and Apple’s webpage for the outlet offers nothing in the way of photographs.

However, rumors of the upcoming store first surfaced back in May, when Chinese media outlets spotted this ominous-looking cube in a new upscale Beijing shopping center.

Okay, okay – that’s a terrible photo. Mysterious monolithic structure does not equal Apple Store. Yet the location listed on Apple’s website matches that of the original structure in question – the China Central Place Shopping Center in Chaoyang.

Sohu IT posted the following photo in its recent report on the pending opening, and the building is currently still enclosed in some sort of protective casing, hiding what lies beneath. So even though the final moment hasn’t arrived, we’re going to bet that this building will not be a 7-11.

Apple will also be conducting a major sale throughout the Chinese-speaking world on the date to coincide with the store’s first day of business.

The arrival of this new Apple store will bring the company’s total retail outlets in China to a dozen, with three in Shanghai, four in Beijing, one in Shenzhen, one in Chengdu, and three in Hong Kong.

Last December Apple celebrated its deal with Chinese telco China Mobile which would see the Cupertino firm’s latest phones reaching a potential consumer base of over 700 million subscribers. The telco will finally begin retailing subsidized 5c and 5s devices on the 17th, one week after the new store opens.

During the last fiscal quarter, Apple generated $5.73 billion in revenue for Greater China sales (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), up 24 percent from the previous quarter and six percent year-on-year.