Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer confirmed that eight stores were opened last quarter for a total of stores opened numbering 216 at quarter end. He then went on to state they were on track to have a total of 242 stores open by the end of fiscal year 2008.
Thus in the next 70 days, twenty-six new Apple Stores are to open by my math.
Wow. Apple Retail is busy.
Peter Oppenheimer also confirmed in his remarks that the first Apple Stores in Switzerland and Germany are to open in the second half of this calendar year in today's conference call.
Now these two pieces of information are positive but I renew my year long call call for more international stores, especially in Europe. I hope the Chief Operations Officer Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer take note of just how busy Apple Retail has been and reflect on possible needs of the Apple Retail team for more help.
Tim Cook commented in answering a question that revenue in the mature markets of France, Germany and Australia were registering growth of over 50%.
It is easy to see that they could target the three largest cities in these countries to get stores opened covering a large percentage of consumers. Again, I suggest spending a small portion of that $5.4 billion in accumulated cash already this fiscal year to expand and duplicate the international part of Ron Johnson's team so Apple can execute toward a greater international presence for all of their businesses and hobbies.
Next European country? With apologies to my Belgium friends, those videos of lines of people in Stockholm and Gothenberg Sweden for the iPhone 3G were impressively long but Spain and its 45 million people might be a more logical place to concentrate over the nine million population of Sweden.
(Columnist Gaurang Donovan is an Australian “mystery man†who wishes to keep his identify secret for personal and business reasons—Dennis)
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