Apple’s Retail Success Is Shared

The revenues and profits of the Retail segment benefit Apple, but other companies are also beneficiaries of the chain’s success, including custom furniture manufacturer Fetzer’s Inc. Of the $611 million that Apple has spent on retail store capital expendtures, $45 million has been awarded to Fetzer under a contract that covered the first 143 stores, according to Fetzer’s own Web site. Those figures mean each store averages $314,685 in store fixtures, which the Web site says includes, “maple, acrylic, Corian, and stainless steel, very exacting quality demands, high degree of electrical and data service.” Fetzer’s brags of, “hundreds of shipments with a perfect on time record,” and that the total contract includes, “thousands of premium quality store fixtures for Apple.”