During Apple’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, company CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed that Apple’s average revenue per retail store was US$17.1 million during the fourth quarter of 2011, up 43 percent from $12.1 million a year ago. Apple opened four new stores in the quarter, three in Europe and one in New York City’s Grand Central Station, for a total of 361 locations in the chain.

Apple retail store traffic is up 43 percent

Apple’s store traffic hit a new record level, Mr. Oppenheimer said, with 110 million visitors compared to 76 million a year ago. He said: “That translates to an average of almost 22,000 visitors per store per week, reflecting an incredible interest in our stores and our products. Our easy pay checkout process has significantly enhanced our ability to handle such high customer traffic levels. Customers can order Macs, iPods or iPads from the Apple online store and pick up most in-stock products within an hour at the Apple retail store of their choice, making shopping for Apple products that much easier and faster.”

Those growth trends helped drive Apple’s retail store Mac sales from 851,000 Macs a year ago to 1.1 million in 4Q11. Mr. Oppenheimer noted: “About half the Macs sold in our stores during the December quarter were to customers who had never owned a Mac before.”