Microsoft is planning on opening 75 more retail locations over the next two to three years, a massive expansion compared to the eleven retail locations the company currently has. The company made the announcement at its World Partner Conference 2011, where it showed slides of the proposed locations.
Microsoft opened its first retail store in 2010, and since then the company has opened ten more in California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, and Georgia. The expansion the company plans is concentrated on the East (mainly the Northeast) and West Coast, in Florida, and in Texas.
During Wednesday’s WPC 2011 Day Three keynote, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner also noted that his company also wants to expand internationally, though he didn’t offer any details on this. He did say, however, that its retail stores have been a great opportunity to learn from its customers.
“The biggest single thing we’ve learned from the stores is it’s helping us to transition from thinking about our customers to thinking like our customers,” Mr. Turner said. “And giving us that direct customer feedback is what we’re learning and getting from our stores.”
He added that his company has, “a huge opportunity to get the Microsoft story out [through its retail stores], and we’re going to keep driving that.”
Below is a PowerPoint slide that shows the locations in the U.S. of the eleven stores the company has opened. the slides were taken from a multi-hour video on Microsoft’s WPC website, and were first spotted by Neowin.
PowerPoint Slide with Microsoft’s Current Retail Locations
Mr. Turner then showed the new locations, as seen below.
PowerPoint Slide with Future Microsoft Retail Locations
In April, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that he wants his company to eventually have more stores than Apple, an effort that will take some time at this pace, but Apple’s own fleet of stores took many years to build.