Apple moves to open first Turkey office

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Apple CEO Tim Cook is pictured during a company meeting. REUTERS photo

U.S. tech giant Apple is set to open an executive office in Istanbul, marking the first of its expected investments in Turkey.

Apple has rented an office in the business towers of Buyaka on the Asian side of Istanbul, an executive of Buyaka, a real estate and management company, confirmed in a telephone interview with the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently stated that they would open Apple stores and iTunes stores in Turkey, after opening an office in the country.

In addition, Apple is one of the 11 companies that submitted their offers for a tender in June to purchase at least 10.6 million tablet PCs as part of the Education Ministry’s “Fatih project” to distribute the devices in schools.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Silicon Valley in San Francisco in May for a tour of leading technology companies, including Microsoft (a bidder company in the tender), Apple and Google, before launching the Fatih project tender.