“Apple’s original vision for its retail operations is proving too small, as the company’s stores are continuously mobbed with crowds looking to buy iPhones, iPads and Macs,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“When the company’s retail operations began 11 years ago, Apple initially targeted 6,000-square-foot stores as the ideal size, according to analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company. As of Apple’s fiscal 2011 10-K report, Apple’s retail stores are now slightly larger, at 8,400 square feet per store,” Hughes reports. “But even as they have grown, Apple’s retail stores are still “bulging at the seams,” according to Wolf. That’s because the number of visitors on a per-store basis has grown at a 15.3 percent annual rate, making the initial vision of 6,000-square-foot store just too small.”
Hughes reports, “Apple’s initial plans also called for the company to open around 100 stores. But at the end of the March quarter, Apple had a total of 363 retail stores open, with a third of them overseas. ‘The company has had to rethink this strategy as the crowds have grown,’ Wolf wrote in a note to investors on Tuesday. ‘”Apple is moving some existing stores to larger locations.'”
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