On October 26th Apple’s retail operation will cross a milestone: the grand opening of store #200 at the SanTan Village shopping center in Gilbert (Ariz.) October 26th, the same day of the reported release of Leopard, the OS X update. It will have been just 2,251 days since Apple opened their first store at the Tysons Corner (Virg.) shopping center, or an average of one store opening every 11.7 days. Revenues started at zero on day one, hit $100 million 16 months later, and hit $500 million just over two years later. The retail operation tallied $1 billion in sales in just over four years, setting an industry record for reaching that mark. Apple will hold a conference call about its fourth-quarter financial results on October 22nd, during which officials said they would detail the number of store openings during fiscal 2008.
Also read...
|
e-mail this story
Apple needs to open @ least 40 more stores in the US & aboard to really start putting the pressure on the likes of Dell & HP. And one more hit product wouldn’t hurt this cause either. For example a 16GB iPhone would be a big hit or one with 3G speed.
Interesting numbers and still less than 5% of the computer market and now complaints are starting to grow about tactics and service at stores from LAX to SFO and more independent resellers are being closed down due to the profit margins of the product if and when they can get any.
Issues of the store costs against the actual profit retained will be more than evident by mid 2008 along with other issues that are facing Apple, i.e. SEC etc.
Regarding Dell and HP, Apple has twice the market cap of Dell right now:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/14397/
and has been plying pressure during this entire decade. Dell and HP have both abandoned “MP3 player” markets due to Apple’s superiority. Dell is scrambling to recapture their coveted laptop market from Apple especially since Intel and Apple got to be friends. Even gobbling up Alienware has done nothing for them.
With respect to the SEC filings etc, I think that these three manufacturers are on level playing field considering their share holder love/hate relationships. There are lots of things that these three have done in the last few years that is getting FTC and other agencies up in arms.
I live in N Scottsdale AZ. Why a new store in Gilbert AZ which is VERY close to the Apple Chandler AZ store. We need an Apple store in the NORTH part of the ‘valley of the sun’
I live in Gilbert, and I think that is awesome that they are finally opening a store near me. It saves an awful lot of driving time. And maybe this one will be even bigger than the Chandler store(which is tiny anyway!!!). Ah well. We will definitly see. I hope to be there on the grand opening. It will be awesome!! I have never been to a store opening, so this is pretty awesome. Oh, and the Chandler store is actually pretty dang far from this new store, so quit your fussing. Oh, and you could just say the valley, since most people will know what you are talking about. And maybe they have that in the works for 2008. You never know do you. Just listen the conference call and you will find out.
The Chandler store is far from tiny, unless they remodeled it and made it smaller. While the Chandler store was the “standard” 45 foot size when it opened, more than 100 have been opened since then that are smaller at 30 feet. I would be shocked if the SanTan store was as big as Chandler. Most mall stores opened since 2002 have been the 30 foot size.
chandler store is only 8 miles from the Gilbert store!
Two stores being 8 miles apart is not uncommon. In Toronto three stores opened within 16 months in 2005-2006. The furthest two apart are 13 miles driving distance away and the closest two are 8 miles driving (less by subway). The two furthest apart stores in the Phoenix metro area are over 30 miles apart. The Toronto stores are clustered closer together despite the Toronto metro area having more than one million more people than the Phoenix area. However, having lived multiple years in both places, I think the Phoenix metro area is much larger geographically than the Toronto metro area or even the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). North Scottsdale may be super rich demographically, but it is so spread out geographically it is next to impossible to find a good location with freeway access like with the SanTan store. I know “North” Scottsdale is somewhat vague and that the 101 freeway does go North of Bell road in Scottsdale, but almost everyone I know that ever moved to North Scottsdale did so to get away from malls and other stores, not so that malls could be built closer to where they now live.
Scottsdale needs a store, I’ve made probably 10 trips to the various Apple store here and being NE of Scottsdale makes for very long drives.
