Best Buy, in the company’s Q4 07 conference call this morning, said during the question and answer session with analysts that they will expand the Apple Mac pilot program to approximately 200 of its stores in North America this year, up from approximately 50 stores currently.
Best Buy is North America’s No. 1 consumer electronics retail store chain with 822 retail locations in North America.
Best Buy’s Q4’07 Revenue and Earnings Conference Call here.
Related articles:
Best Buy: Apple TV available in all 822 U.S. stores starting Tuesday – March 22, 2007
Best Buy ads: ‘Make Your Move to Mac’ – just weeks after Windows Vista consumer debut – February 19, 2007
Apple expands Mac pilot program to 47 Best Buy locations nationwide – November 14, 2006
Best Buy test-selling Macs using Apple-trained Best Buy employees – June 21, 2006
Apple 10% share 2008. Not that marketshare matters, but…
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Good. Hopefully the local Best Buy will get some so they will have something to hook their AppleTVs up to.
I went in there yesterday, and they had about 5 TVs stacked at the end of a shelf, nothing but a price tag under it.
What? They can hook it up to a PC? I don’t think they are stupid enough to have a demo PC hooked to a plasma just so people can watch it freeze up. Yep, wait for the Mac Attack, and use one of them.
Ooooooo… Best Buy’s gonna sell more Macs, Ooooooo.
Give me a break.
Just what we need… more lousy presentation of Macs from crappy salespeople who can’t stand Apple because Apple doesn’t give them a spiff.
At my local BB, they have about an acre of PC desktops and laptop displayed in a big open area with designer furniture, lots of lighting,etc. As expected with this pilot program was announced, I found the “Mac section” relegated to about a four foot stretch in the next aisle. You know, your basic big-box dingey, dark aisle with the mousepads and joysticks. Best Buy won’t do a lot for Mac sales. I frankly don’t know why they are expanding this program. It appears that it more of a bother to them than anything— “Oh crap, we’ve gotta double up the ink supply rack so we squeeze in one MacBook and an iMac.”
With CompUSA virtually leaving the scene, they need to expand the Best Buy program to fill in some of the gaps for those cities without Apple Stores.
Just so you know that name is the shortened version – our full name is “Best Buy It Someplace Else”
MW: hundred as in Best Buy should be able to contribute a hundred or so sales to this year’s Apple total sales numbers.
I’ve seen people walk by the iMacs in a Best Buy and admire them. Their comment was “oh, so this is a Mac, it looks nice”.
Sorry if having Macs at Best Buy makes you feel less exclusive. Quit being a snob.
Just to let you know I bought my Mac at BB last month. They had an Apple rep and there aren’t any Apple stores within 50 miles of here. If it hadn’t been for that rep I never would have taken a deeper look (and purchased) my Mac.
Having these units at BB helps sales especially in those areas with no Apple stores.
More stores is good…
Well said macbill, well said.
I’ve purchased 5 Macs over the last 5 years, and only one of them came from an Apple Store. Whether you personally like BB or not, there is definitely a market and a place for having them available at other retailers. The more the better.
Bandit Bill:
“Sorry if having Macs at Best Buy makes you feel less exclusive. Quit being a snob.”
Old Coot:
“Having these units at BB helps sales especially in those areas with no Apple stores.”
I’m a proud card carrying long time Mac user fan boy of Apple. That said, I could care less if Macs sold in vending machines if people wanted to buy them that way. My long standing concern over having Macs in big box retail stores that also sell PCs is that Macs are rarely presented in a good light.. stuck in corners, not turned on or working, sales people who have no idea how they work or what they can do, etc.
If you found yours that way, Old Coot, that’s fabulous and I hope you love it, but there’s a good reason Apple opened all those expensive retails stores to sell their computers themselves.
I’ve seen people walk by the iMacs in a Best Buy and admire them. Their comment was “oh, so this is a Mac, it looks nice”.
Yeh, you’d be surprised how many people haven’t even seen a Mac (physically) (like myself, up until a few months ago when my brother got a MacBook, the lucky bastard…), and they do tend to have a good effect once seen in person.
Jesus-
watch your language!!!!
twilightmoon@mac.com,
I think you meant to write: ‘I couldn’t care less’.
Having more opportunities to buy a Mac is a good thing unless those opportunities are similar to those presented at the Best Buy store in Daytona Beach.
I was there earlier this week and I walked over to the computer section to see where they kept the Macintosh computers because they were advertised in Best Buy’s Sunday flyer, and because I’m looking for an ergonomic, soft touch wireless keyboard for my iMac.
I didn’t see any iMacs or MacBooks, so I asked a nice young salesman where they were, and if they carried Mac peripherals such as keyboards, etc. But no luck.
“Macs? No we don’t have any of those. I think you have to order them online, maybe through Best Buy for Business. Or they have stores in Orlando.”
I mentioned I’d seen them in the Sunday flyer, so I thought Best Buy had them in stock. The salesman then said he thought he might have seen some in the past, so we walked over to a central checkout area and he called to another sales guy.
“Hey, do we have any Macs?”
“What, Mats?” the other guy asked.
“No, you know, Macs,” my salesman said.
“Oh,” the other guy answered, “You have to order them online. Here’s one a lady ordered and then decided she wanted another model. She never even picked it up.”
It was a 17-inch iMac in a box sitting on the floor behind the sales counter. No one could see it unless you walked right up to the counter and leaned over to look.
I asked my salesman if Best Buy had anyone working there who was familiar with Macintosh computers, and he said no.
I think the Geek Squad unit stationed there at Best Buy does have someone who can work on Macintosh systems, but the whole Best Buy experience really makes you wonder if you’d want to call someone from there for tech support, even though it’s must closer than Orlando.
MacBill, you should know the facts before you speak. What you people don’t know is that everyone of these stores will have a Apple Employee in the store full time to train and help sell these new products!
This is going to be the best move Apple and BB have ever made and WILL increase Apples market share to double digits in less than a year! I’ll bet a year salary on it!