Apple to open new stores globally

The consumer electronics giant announced Thursday that it is contemplating opening 40 to 50 bigger Apple stores across different international locations in 2010.

Following an aggressive retail strategy, Apple Inc. looks forward to reach out to its consumers and increase their awareness with regard to its line of consumer electronic devices, such as the iPhone, smartphone, iPod, MacBook notebooks, and iMac desktops.

At a media preview of one of Apple’s store, Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice president of retail, said “Our Apple stores are a magnet for switchers," he said. "About half the people who come into our retail locations are first-time Mac buyers."

Apple's new outlets to be located outside U.S.
The gadget giant indicated that more than half of the Apple outlets will be located outside United States in locations such as London, Paris, France, Shanghai, Canada, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and China.

Currently, Apple Inc. operates 280 outlets in 10 countries.

Apple’s announcement comes at a time when its arch-rival Microsoft Corp opened its second retail outlet in Mission Viejo, California. Looks like, Apple is emulating Microsoft's retail success.

When asked about Microsoft, Johnson said, "retailing is hard ... it's nice to have a 10-year head start."

"This is just another place where we compete," he said. "The world is really large for stores, and so there's going to be a lot smaller overlap in our retail strategies than there would be in our product strategies."

Apple’s retail stores: key revenue drivers
Apple opened its first store in 2001, and since then it has out-paced the market in terms of overall sales, market share, and most importantly, rendering satisfactory customer experience.

The gadget giant is hugely popular among the consumers primarily for its face-to-face customer service and support.

The retail business generated $6.6 billion of the company's $29.9 billion in revenue in the current fiscal year, Johnson said.

The annual earnings per store come to around annual $26 million, Johnson said, or roughly $4,300 per square foot.

Reader’s take
Some readers have welcomed Apple’s retail strategy, while others are just taking it as a mere attempt to money making.

“These stores are amazing and have brought in incredible amount of revenue and popularity for apple. They are always so crowded. Even then most of them just come to play Photo Booth,” posted a reader with username Gold_Storm_Mac on cnet.com.

Mr. dee wrote on cnet.com, “I am not gonna lie, that store looks amazing, but I am forever PC. The next time I am in New York I will be stopping by with my Windows 7 Enterprise 90-trial to load it up on all the Macs in the store. I will also do an in store demo of the all the cool features of Windows 7 and then whisk myself away before they call the cops.”

jr24ds commented on the same news site, “think you just need to stop drinking your hater-aid and just try a mac. if it makes them money and it's bringing business, then let them do it. icrap software?! really? try turning on a new pc and seeing all the crapware that's on it like antivirus that slows your computer down like crazy and bunch of manufacture CRAP! see that on a mac? no.”