Vietnam excluded from Apple Store plans for Asia-Pacific

The U.S. tech giant plans to either build, remodel or relocated 15 sites in China, five in Japan, three in India, two in South Korea, and one each in Malaysia and Australia, Bloomberg reported.

This means Malaysia will be the next Southeast Asian country to get an Apple Store after Singapore and Thailand.

Apple last month launched an online store for Vietnamese customers, and analysts expected this to lead to the opening of brick-and-mortar stores in the country.

Apple has been showing increasing interest in the Vietnamese market in recent years. Last year it appointed a country manager for the first time, and set up an official YouTube channel.

It also mentioned Vietnam as achieving double-digit growth in its financial report for the second half of last year.

There are over 520 Apple Stores in 26 countries.