The World's Largest Apple Store Might Be Built Inside A Dubai Mall

Apple is reportedly planning to build the largest Apple Store in the world in Dubai's Mall of the Emirates, MacRumors reports, a Middle Eastern website.

The Mall of the Emirates currently includes over 700 shops spread across four floors, and an indoor ski resort. The new Apple Store was originally planned to fill the mall's large cinema complex, a source told MacRumors. It's not clear if that's still the case.

If the new Apple Store really is the largest in the world, it would surpass the company's 23,000 square-foot Grand Central Store in New York. Apple's iconic Fifth Avenue store boasts the highest number of staff members of any Apple Store, with over 300 employees it exceeds the average of 100 Apple staff per store.

This new rumor follows the posting of 13 job listings for the United Arab Emirates on Apple's official jobs site, MacRumors pointed out. The listings appear to suggest that Apple is planning on opening an official retail store in the country, rather than relying on authorized resellers, as it has done in the past in Dubai. The timing of the job listings suggests an opening date for the new store in February 2015.

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Dubai in February of this year, where he met with officials from the country's government. It's believed that the meeting focused around Apple's plans to expand in Dubai as well as how the IT industry in general can help advance education.

We've reached out to Apple for comment and will let you know if we hear back.