Coronavirus strikes: All 17 Italian Apple Stores are now closed through next week

Milan Apple Store.jpg (Image credit: Stephen Warwick/iMore)

What you need to know

All 17 Italian Apple Stores are now closed.
They're closed through next Wednesday, March 17.
It isn't clear when they will open again.

We previously heard that Apple would be closing all of its Italian Apple Stores this weekend, but things have taken a turn for the worse. As of right now, all 17 Apple Stores in the country will close today and not re-open until at least Thursday, March 18. It's thought that the move is in response to the ongoing coronavirus issues in the area.

It isn't yet clear when these stores will re-open, with the online store checker only showing opening hours up until Wednesday, March 17. It's likely that Apple is taking a wait-and-see approach and will update its stores and its plans as the situation progresses.

Era inevitabile che finisse così: tutti chiusi fino a nuovo ordine i 17 Apple Store italiani #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/uS2GPIdTy4Era inevitabile che finisse così: tutti chiusi fino a nuovo ordine i 17 Apple Store italiani #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/uS2GPIdTy4— setteBIT (@setteBIT) March 11, 2020 March 11, 2020

Apple recently closed all of its Chinese Apple Stores following the coronavirus outbreak, and it's taking a similar tact in Italy. It remains to be seen whether we can expect further store closures internationally, but with Italy being one of the worst affected countries, it makes sense that it's the first country outside of China to see all stores closed indefinitely.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.