Expansion Plans Scaled Back for Apple

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10148170-37.html?tag=mncol;title' target='_blank'>http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-1...tag=mncol;title</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Apple's fiscal first quarter was a blowout by any standard, but it's worth taking a look at one potential concern: retail."</em></p><p><em><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1232682926.usr105634.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></em></p><p>Even after the glowing <a href="http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f380/apple-stock-jumps-after-earnings-report-92279.html" target="_blank">earnings report</a> they seem to have found a weakness in the armor, namely the retail side of things. They had a drop of about 18% in the retail sales, and have since decided to scale back expansion to 25 new stores, 1/2 of them outside the United States. Seems like a smart move in an economic climate like this. It reminds of what <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/business/30cnd-sbux.html" target="_blank">Starbucks</a> went through a year or two ago, consolidating stores and scaling back expansion plans. I always thought it silly when I saw one Starbucks store competing with another one across the street. I'm not comparing this situation to Apple's, but then again, we do have 3 stores in the Portland Metro area.&nbsp;</p>

[crimsonsky]

Agreed. Ha - you're fortunate to have three in your area. Here in the Hampton Roads area of SE Virginia, we only have one and it's really not in the most convenient area for folks of the seven cities here to get to. I only go to the Apple store here very infrequently just because it's such a pain to deal with the traffic getting to Norfolk. They really need to open another one here. The next closest one is in Richmond - 90 minutes away.

I'm still agog that there isn't one in DC. Yeah - there's a couple stores in the DC metro area, but they really need one in the city itself.

[Jeff Campbell]

Sounds like we could send you one of our stores! Two of ours are in seperate malls, but the malls aren't that far from each other, the third one is downtown Portland and is a pain to get to, so maybe we send you that one! :-)