“For anyone who lives hundreds of miles away from an Apple retail store, and who hopes a store will open in their city, don’t hold your breath,” Gary Allen reports for Forbes.
“While Apple did make good on its promise to open ‘about 30’ Apple retail stores during fiscal 2013, just four of those stores opened within the United States,” Allen reports. “And significantly, none of those stores expanded the chain’s footprint, since they’re all within a 30-minute drive of an existing Apple store. ”
Allen reports, “Several other new stores were simply replacements for older stores, not expansions into new territory. In fact, the last new region to land an Apple store was Bakersfield (Calif.) in September 2012, and before that New Haven (Conn.) in September 2011. The slow growth of the chain in the U.S. means there are still significant black-out areas, including along the Gulf Coast from Tampa (Fla.) to New Orleans (La.), from San Francisco to Portland (Ore.), and within large sections of the midwest. ”
Read more in the full article here.