Apple has confirmed its third UK retail location: the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, just outside London's M25 orbital freeway.

The announcement came from the Mac maker's retail chief, Ron Johnson, in London yesterday to officially launch its Regent Street store, which will open to the public tomorrow.

Apple is already known to be gearing up to open its second UK store, in Birmingham's rebuilt Bull Ring mall. The Bluewater outlet is site number three. Both are expected to open "sometime in 2005", Johnson said, Macworld UK reports.

"We want to open as soon as possible," Johnson said. Apple is also preparing to open stores on continental Europe, he added.

There are a number of Apple-branded stores around Europe, but the London location is the first to be owned and operated by Apple itself, rather than members of its reseller channel. ®

Bootnote The Register was not, as usual, invited to the Regent Street store launch. We're persona non grata: something about not toeing the party line and writing the kind of stories Apple thinks we should write, company insiders have told us.

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