A pple has released a press release celebrating the second anniversary of its Apple Store chain of retail locations. In the press release, Apple officially announced new Apple Store locations in San Francisco and Tokyo -- the first international Apple Store, in the case of the Tokyo location -- as well as the upcoming store in Chicago. The company says that all three stores will be the "high profile format" store that has been a huge success in Manhattanis SoHo district. The SoHo store is enormous, with two floors and a massively expensive glass stair case that was developed specifically and exclusively for Apple.
Other important notes in the press release include the claim that some 15 million people have visited the 57 Apple Stores that have opened in the last two years. Apple also says that the stores have sold a combined total of US$650 million in sales. From Apple:
Apple this week marks the second anniversary of opening its first retail store in May 2001. Since then, Apple has opened 57 retail stores in 26 states, hosted over 15 million visitors and sold over $650 million of products through its retail stores. More than 1,100 Apple employees work in Appleis retail stores and there is an Apple store location within 15 miles of 90 million people in the U.S.
During the next 12 months Apple plans to open 20 new Apple retail stores, including its first store in downtown Chicago, on North Michigan Avenue; its first store in San Francisco, in Union Square; and its first retail store outside of the U.S., in Tokyois Ginza shopping district. These three locations will be high profile store formats, like Appleis incredibly popular SoHo store in New York City.
"In just two years Apple has changed the face of computer retailing for over 15 million people that have visited our 57 stores throughout the U.S.," said Steve Jobs, Appleis CEO. "During the next 12 months we will extend our reach even further by opening 20 more stores, including three new high profile stores in Chicago, San Francisco and Tokyo."
The Apple retail store on North Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago will open on Friday, June 27, 2003, the Tokyo store will open in early 2004 and the San Francisco store will open in spring 2004. Apple recently opened its first retail stores in Honolulu, Seattle and Sacramento, California.
You can get more information on Appleis retail operations at the companyis Apple Store retail Web site. The three new stores announced in the press release are not listed on that site as of this writing.