NEW DELHI: The Cupertino-based tech giant Apple Inc. has chosen Mumbai’s Maker Maxity mall, co-owned by Reliance Industries , to open its first company-owned iconic outlet in India, four people familiar with the development told ET. Apple leased around 20,000-25,000 sq ft space spread over three floors in the mall located in the commercial hub of Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), the sources said.Manish Maker, partner in Maker Maxity with RIL as the other JV partner, declined comment for this report.One of the persons cited earlier said a team from Apple US is currently camping in Mumbai for designing and creating layout of the outlet that is expected to open doors in September next year. “Fitouts have started,” he said. Apple is importing the fixtures and furniture for the debut outlet and will take about eight months to a year to finish, said the other person.The upcoming flagship store in BKC will be the largest Apple store in India and will be three times the size of its largest franchisee run 8,000 sq ft outlet in Mumbai. The Flagship Apple Premium Reseller (FAPR) store opened in August occupies two floors in Mumbai’s High Street Phoenix mall and showcases Apple’s entire range available in India.“This COCO (company-owned, company-operated) store will be at par with Apple stores in Hong Kong that are in the range of 20,000 to 25,000 sq ft,” said a second person adding Apple has taken the mall space on a revenuesharing model with the shopping centre. “The Mumbai flagship store will be on three levels – one floor dedicated as experience centre, another floor for retailing and the top for service centre.”Apple plans to open its fully-owned iconic outlets in India were gathering dust with the government for years as India mandates companies applying for more than 51% foreign direct investment (FDI) through single-brand retailing route to locally source 30% of the products they sell in the country. However, in August India amended rules for single brand licence holders to include exports and contract manufacturing to be counted in the mandatory 30% local sourcing norm over a period of five years.Apple did not respond to specific questions on their plans for the store opening in India and instead sent a statement that it had issued in August when India relaxed single brand norms."We love our customers in India and we’re eager to serve them online and in-store with the same experience and care that Apple customers around the world enjoy,” the Apple statement said. “We appreciate the support and hard work by Prime Minister Modi and his team to make this possible and we look forward to one day welcoming customers to India’s first Apple retail store. It will take us some time to get our plans underway and we’ll have more to announce at a future date.”