Russian beauty retailer Golden Apple enters Saudi Arabian market

YEKATERINBURG. Feb 12 (Interfax) - The cosmetics and perfumery chain Golden Apple (Yekaterinburg) will begin operating in Saudi Arabia, the company's press service said.

Offline and online stores will be launched in the coming months, it said.

"Golden Apple will become not only the first Russian beauty retailer to enter the kingdom's market but also the first multi-brand retailer to enter in an omnichannel manner [opening a physical store and launching an online store]," Abdulselim Vagabov, a representative of the Russian Export Center in Saudi Arabia, was quoted as saying.

Saudi Arabia will become the sixth country where Golden Apple operates, and the third in the Middle East. Last spring, the company began operating in Qatar, and in December it launched a pilot online store in the UAE. It also has plans to open an offline store in Dubai. In addition, the retailer operates in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

According to a 2023 report from Yekaterinburg Yabloko LLC, Golden Apple's legal entity, the company's beneficiaries are Maxim Panyak and Ivan Kuzovlev. As reported, by the end of that year the retailer achieved a net profit of 3.3 billion rubles, up 18.3%. Revenue rose 1.5-fold to 93.5 billion rubles.