Apple reportedly reopens all stores in China after coronavirus closures
It shut its retail locations all last month due to coronavirus concerns, but has been gradually reopening them.
Shoppers wear face masks in a Beijing Apple Store on Wednesday. The company reportedly reopened the last of its China retail locations on Friday.
Apple has reopened all of its stores in China, Bloomberg and Reuters reported, after shutting them last month due to the coronavirus outbreak. It's been gradually reopening them since then, and the final one apparently resumed business on Friday.
The closures factored into the Cupertino, California, company warning last month that the virus' impact was likely to hurt its quarterly revenue. Shortly afterward, CEO Tim Cook expressed confidence that China was getting the outbreak under control.
The new strain of coronavirus, which can develop into a respiratory illness known as COVID-19, was discovered in Wuhan, China, in December. It's now infected nearly 130,000 people and caused more than 4,700 deaths globally.
Tech companies have been reacting to the outbreak by canceling conferences, taking steps to combat misinformation on their platforms and instructing employees to work from home. Apple closed stores in Italy, in addition to restricting employee travel. Cook has also given most of his company's global workforce permission to work from home.
The company didn't respond to a request for comment.
