Apple, which has spent the past day pulling older model iPhone and iPad inventory from the shelves of its online store in Germany, is now scrambling to restore it. This morning, a court temporarily suspended an injunction that prevented Apple from selling or distributing iOS devices believed to infringe certain Motorola Mobility patents.

In a statement given to AllThingsD, Apple confirmed that the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G/UMTS-based iPads should be returning to the shelves of its German online store in a matter of hours.

“All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple’s online store in Germany shortly,” an Apple spokeswoman told AllThingsD. “Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.”

The injunction at issue here was granted last December, but wasn’t served until recently, sources say. Apple began making the appropriate adjustments to its German online store earlier this week, while continuing to appeal the injunction, which was subsequently suspended this morning.

So what happens next? Well, this is only a temporary suspension. So, at best, it’s a brief reprieve for Apple, until the legal issues surrounding it are resolved. Top among them: Apple’s argument that Motorola Mobility is not honoring the FRAND licensing obligations (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) it has on some standards-essential patents.

“In a best-case scenario for Apple, the suspension would now be in effect until the appeals court makes a decision on Apple’s appeal,” FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller explains. “In that case, it would be in effect for well over a year.”

Target today said it plans to test Apple mini-stores at a few dozen of its retail locations this year, expanding a partnership that to date has seen it selling only iOS devices.

“We will have 25 stores with a unique display and assortment [of Apple products],” Target spokeswoman Dustee Jenkins told MarketWatch.

First reported by AppleInsider last week, the move is a wise one for both companies.For Target, it’s a good way to invigorate its softening electronics business, which forced the retailer to cut its earnings forecast last week. And for Apple, it’s another means of expanding its retail reach into smaller locations that can’t support a standalone Apple Store. The company inked a similar deal with Best Buy in 2007, debuting a handful of mini-stores at several of the big box retailer’s locations. Today, some 700 Best Buy stores across the United States feature an Apple shop.

Apple declined comment on the arrangement.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster surveyed a few Apple stores on Black Friday and found that iPad sales per hour were 68 percent higher than they were a year ago. On average, the stores Munster visited sold about 14.8 iPads per hour, up from 8.8 iPads per hour last year, more than enough to support the analyst’s projection of 13.5 million iPads sold in the December quarter.

iPad sell-through remains “strong,” said Munster.

Over at Deutsche Bank, analyst Chris Whitmore reached a similar conclusion after checking in with more than 100 Apple retail stores and another 100 or so carrier outlets and big-box retailers. “iPad demand continues to be robust, driven by significant consumer interest in the device,” Whitmore said in a research note to clients. “Our checks indicated the iPad was a popular item on many consumers’ shopping lists over the weekend.”

While demand for the iPad was high across all models, Whitmore found it to be highest for the 32GB version with 3G, which evidently hits the sweet spot storage-wise. Also in high demand, AT&T 3G models which, unlike their Verizon counterparts, can be used internationally.

Like Munster, Whitmore came away from his Black Friday checks convinced iPad sales are tracking roughly in line with his estimate: 14 million for the December quarter.

Seems those iPad concerns were a bit overblown.

When the device became available for preorder last Friday in Hong Kong, it sold out within 10 minutes. And in the States, retail inventories are reportedly being depleted almost as quickly as Apple can replenish them.

Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore says a great majority of Apple’s U.S. stores are running out of 4S supplies on a daily basis.

“Our retail checks reveal Apple is experiencing daily stock outs at 85 to 90 percent of the ~30 retail stores we called,” Whitmore wrote in a note to clients. “Apple employees are directing customers to make an online appointment (first come first serve) for next day pick up at nearby Apple retail stores as stocks appear to be refreshed daily at most locations.”

Interestingly, availability at Apple’s carrier partners — AT&T, Sprint and Verizon — seems to be a bit more sporadic. “Our calls to carrier stores reveal infrequent shipments and no certainty when the next shipment will arrive with widespread shortages,” Whitmore explains. “It appears that Apple is prioritizing its own stores with new iPhones.”

Understandable, of course, though potentially a bit frustrating for carriers. Anyway …

So once again Apple is working hard to keep up with massive demand for its latest iPhone. And, once again, supply is likely the only factor limiting how many handsets it will sell.

Says Whitmore: “Continued strong demand (ahead of the holidays with more countries to be rolled out) makes our 28 million iPhone estimate for the December quarter appear increasingly conservative.”

• Apple currently has 357 retail stores in 11 countries.
• More than six million copies of OS X Lion have been downloaded through the Mac App Store.
• That’s 80 percent more than Snow Leopard.
• It took Lion two weeks to reach 10 percent of its user base. It took Windows 7 20 weeks to do the same.
• The Mac is the number one best-selling desktop and notebook in the United States; it’s approaching 60 million users around the world, and its growth has outpaced the PC market every single quarter for the past 5 years.
• The iPod, which launched 10 years ago, is still the number one music player in the world.
• Apple has sold more than 300 million iPods to date. It took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players. (Note: it seems Apple is a bit off on the Sony portion of this metric)
• The company sold 45 million iPods last year alone, and almost half of purchasers bought for the first time.
• iTunes is the number one music store in the world.
• There are now 20 million songs in iTunes; over 16 billion songs have been downloaded from it to date.
• The iPhone is the number one smartphone in the world.
• 93 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are deploying or testing the iPhone.
• The iPhone is number one in customer satisfaction.
• J.D. Power has ranked it as the number one smartphone six times in a row.
• Almost 1,000 K-12 schools have a 1:1 iPad deployment program.
• More than 80 percent of hospitals in the U.S. are testing iPads.
• 92 percent of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying the iPad.
• The iPad is the number one tablet in the world.
• Three out of four tablets sold in the U.S. are iPads.
• There have been 250 million iOS devices sold so far.
• There are more than 500,000 apps in the App Store. More than 140,000 are designed specifically for the iPad.
• Customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps to date.
• There are about 1 billion apps downloaded per month.
• Apple has paid out $3 billion dollars to developers so far.
• The iPod touch is the number one portable game player.
• By December, the iPhone will be in more than 70 countries on more than 100 carriers.

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That said, there was quite a bit of napping on the job by some popular Web sites on Thursday night.

Apple’s store was down, displaying the “be back soon” message that typically presages new products being added, though it wasn’t clear if this was the reason for Thursday’s downtime.

Separately, Microsoft was having a devil of a time with its consumer Web services, with properties like Hotmail and SkyDrive out of commission and Office 365 also reporting problems.

“We’re aware of an outage impacting Hotmail, SkyDrive, and our other properties,” Microsoft said in a tweet. “We are actively working to resolve this issue. More to come.”

A separate Twitter message said that Office 365 was starting to see some resumption of service.

Update: A follow-up tweet from Microsoft said the company believes it has resolved the Web issues, although I am not able to access my Hotmail account as of 10 pm PT.

Later this month, Apple will open a new store in Hong Kong’s International Finance Center mall. Located in the city’s central shopping and business district, the store will be Apple’s fifth in China when it opens for business — reportedly on September 24. It will be followed by a sixth in Shanghai later this quarter.

As we’ve noted here many times before, China is clearly Apple’s next major geographic growth opportunity. There is a fast-developing brand preference for its products among higher-income Chinese consumers, one borne out by the massive lines and stockouts that greeted the launch of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4. And by expanding its retail distribution like this, the company is moving quickly to take advantage of it.

As Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the company’s July earnings call, Apple’s revenue from Greater China surged sixfold to about $3.8 billion during its third quarter.

“China was very key to our results,” Cook said at the time. “[It] has been a substantial opportunity for Apple, and I firmly believe that we’re just scratching the surface right now. I think there is incredible opportunity for Apple there.”

[Image credit: NeonPunch]

As Curbed (via MacRumors) notes, a permit request to Santa Monica’s planning commission doesn’t identify the retailer that wants to build this thing, but it sure looks a whole lot like a showcase Apple store.

Bonus for whatever store’s employees do end up working here: “Secure bicycle parking” in the basement. If you’re into that kind of thing.

What gall — doesn’t Apple know that RIM is the biggest technology company in Canada!?!

Now Waterloo is one of Canada’s leading tech centers and home to some big universities, so it makes perfect sense for Apple to open a store there. Still, it’s hard not to view this particular opening as a twist of the knife given RIM’s deteriorating position in the consumer smartphone market and Apple’s ascendancy.

As noted earlier on China Real Time, the fake Apple Store, located in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, was spotted by an expatriate blogger in the city who uses the handle BirdAbroad. It has since gotten widespread international attention for the remarkable lengths to which its proprietors seem to have gone to mimic the look and feel of a real Apple Store.

Trying to reach the store’s owners has been tough. Repeated calls to the manager on Thursday went unanswered. But a store employee reached by phone confirmed that the store is not an authorized Apple reseller.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

“We’ll be back soon,” reads the online Post-it note familiar to the Apple faithful.

The site tends to go down a couple hours before it reopens with whatever Cupertino has up its sleeve.

In this case, that is most certainly Mac OS X Lion, but also probably long-awaited new hardware, including a revamped MacBook Air. Apple confirmed Lion’s debut would come Wednesday during Tuesday’s earnings conference call, but predictably didn’t comment on what new hardware might accompany the software release.

Unlike past OS releases, Lion will be sold via the Mac App Store, as opposed to in boxed form at retail stores.

UPDATE: Apple has since said that it plans to make it available via USB drives starting in August.

— Ron Johnson, 2005

$1.2 billion.

That’s how much J.C. Penney added to its market cap Tuesday by announcing it had poached Apple retail guru Ron Johnson to become its future CEO.

And for good reason: In retail, Johnson’s record is without rival. Under his leadership, Apple has opened 324 stores since 2001 and is scheduled to open about 40 more this year. According to Barclay’s analyst Ben Reitzes, sales through Apple’s retail stores will likely exceed $16.5 billion this year and grow to over $20 billion in fiscal 2012. As Needham analyst Charlie Wolf told AllThingsD, “Ron is arguably one of the great merchants in America. He and his team basically reinvented the retail concept in the Apple Stores.”

So it’s true that Johnson’s departure is a loss to Apple — a meaningful loss.

But beyond the search for his successor, it really doesn’t change anything.

Certainly, it’s not going to make Apple any less of a retail phenomenon. The company’s strategic direction in that space is set. And Johnson leaves behind him not just a team fully capable of executing it, but a retail business that today is the fourth fastest growing in the world, according to the National Retail Federation.

In other words, the hard work of conceiving and executing Apple’s retail strategy is done. And with the company adding more and more stores, particularly in eager new markets like China, there seems little chance for disruption in growth or performance — certainly not with Apple’s current product line, which continues to draw massive crowds to its retail stores in the States and abroad.

Which brings me to my final point. There’s no question that the decade Johnson spent shaping Apple’s retail strategy was critical to the company’s renaissance. But it’s important to remember that decade was also the one that birthed the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. It’s those innovative products that played the biggest role in Apple’s retail success and will continue to drive it going forward. And they’re not going anywhere.

“I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.”

–A 2001 prediction by David Goldstein, president of Channel Marketing, about Apple’s then newly launched retail stores

In Apple’s history, there are many come-from-behind, or out of nowhere, success stories–the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. And then there’s the Apple Store, which though lacking that iconic “i” prefix, is no less remarkable.

Ten years after Apple opened its first two retail stores, there are 323 more, 91 of them overseas, and together they are generating upwards of $3 billion per quarter ($3.19 billion last quarter–up 90 percent year over year). According to Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe, who’s done the math, that means Apple Stores pull in about $5,000 per square foot in revenue per year, which far exceed not only Best Buy’s $1,000 per square foot, but Tiffany’s roughly $2,700 per square foot as well.

Little wonder Apple Stores are the fourth fastest growing retail business in the world, according to the National Retail Federation. Their patrons are among the most satisfied around–even if they don’t actually buy anything, a fact Howe noted in his recent survey of Apple Store customers.

“72 percent of consumers [said they] are highly satisfied with Apple products and services,” Howe explained. “Intriguingly, 84 percent of consumers who shop in an Apple Store say they are highly satisfied with its products and services, even if they don’t own any Apple products.”

It’s clear then that the Apple Store shopping experience does much to bolster the Apple brand. Which is why the company’s recent retail store upgrades–which include a new “Personal Setup” service and iPad 2-based Smart Signs–is so important.

With the Apple Store, Apple leapfrogged other retailers years ago and now it’s poised to do it again with an improved level of customer service and product signage that gives it unparalleled messaging and collateral consistency. As Howe notes, the company can change in-store product marketing at a moment’s notice or reinforce a new ad campaign the minute it runs.

“I think the bottom line is that the changes just set Apple’s already best-in-class shopping experience even farther ahead of its competitors,” Howe said. “And that type of differentiated shopping experience just drives customer brand loyalty up.”

[Image credits: AllAboutSteveJobs.com, Yankee Group]

“I give [Apple] two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.”

– A 2001 prediction by David Goldstein, president of Channel Marketing, about Apple’s newly launched retail stores, which celebrate their 10th anniversary this week.

But the trek won’t be necessary anymore, it seems. Local outlets are reporting that Apple is preparing to open a pop-up shop for the next two weeks at 6th and Congress in downtown Austin. That’s a mere stroll from the SXSW epicenter.

Plans for the store apparently came together in just the last couple days, with an Apple rep scouting the location on Monday and workers sprucing it up and carting in signage on Wednesday. The grand opening is set for Friday.

A swarm of early-adopting iPad 2 buyers is a sure bet; really, the only question is who will be mayor of the pop-up store on Foursquare.

(Here’s Walt Mossberg’s iPad 2 review.)

Meanwhile, AT&T is again boosting Austin coverage for the conference, after failing miserably to withstand the iPhone swarm two years ago and recovering admirably with temporary cell sites in 2010. No word on whether new iPhone and iPad carrier Verizon is doing the same.

As for our plans at AllThingsD, Kara Swisher, Katie Boehret and I will be in Austin this weekend. Kara’s putting Flipboard on the hot seat on Saturday, and I’m doing a panel on personalized recommendations with StumbleUpon, YouTube and Pandora on Sunday.

If y’all happen to take a second to look up from your iPhone apps between checking in, filtering snapshots and mapping parties, perhaps we’ll see you in person.

Streetview capture of the Apple Store pop-up location via Austinist.

I began by making some work-related visits, including a stop at Carphone Warehouse, a big seller of phones here in the U.K. and partly owned by U.S. giant Best Buy.

The store had things neatly arranged by category, with most things divided into “phones” and “smarter phones,” although the iPhone had a display all to its lonesome. The clerk told Mobilized that the iPhone is the most popular, followed by some of HTC’s Android phones, with BlackBerry also reasonably popular. As for Windows Phone 7 devices, there were none, though she said some were due to arrive next week. Nokia still sold some, but they weren’t nearly as popular these days, she said.

Considering my work done, I headed to other sites, spending a rainy couple of hours in Camden Market, a great open-air shopping area that is even better when you don’t have to buy a five-pound Union Jack umbrella just to get around.

From there it was on to King’s Cross Station, which Harry Potter fans know as the place where students can catch the Hogwarts Express, assuming they can find Platform 9 3/4. Because there are lots of tourists like me, the powers that be have actually put in a Platform 9 3/4 so people can have their picture taken pushing a trolley into the wall.

Finally, I decided I should check out the Regent Street Apple Store to see how Cupertino retail translates. It turns out the store is very similar to Apple’s stateside stores, with one big difference–the prices, which are much higher. That explains why Mobilized is always in line behind three Europeans at the store in San Francisco.

For those who like pretty pictures rather than words, here ya go. Cheers.

But evidently that’s not the case.

Pre-orders were huge, of course, cutting down the need for people to go out to a store, so early reports from around the country revealed a far more sedate response to a long-awaited event that ironically seems pretty uneventful. Fifteen minutes before the the Verizon iPhone went on sale, there were just eight people in line at Apple’s flagship store in New York, according to CNNMoney. At a lower-Manhattan Verizon store, 21 people queued up to buy the iPhone.

The scene was largely the same around the country, according to other reports: 20 folks at a Gainesville Verizon Store, 10 at another in Plainview, a dozen in Milwaukee, a “few dozen” in Lincoln, Neb.,. And before you the blame cold temperatures for the modest turnout, consider this: The line in front of Apple’s Stockton Street flagship store in San Francisco this morning was just two people long. Said News.com’s Marguerite Reardon, “Upon arriving here about five minutes (before the 7 a.m. opening of the store), there were literally more Apple Store employees, police officers and reporters–each–than people in line to buy iPhones.”

So, a pretty staid turnout for a device that’s generated such monomaniacal interest for so long. That said, it’s important to remember that Verizon isn’t launching the iPhone into a market with a vast untapped demand for it. In reality, most folks who absolutely had to have an iPhone bought one from AT&T. And those who refused to leave Verizon to do so likely pre-ordered one last week. In the end, the lines (or lack thereof) we’re seeing today have very little to do with how big a seller the iPhone will be for Verizon (and for proof of that, one need only look to foreign markets with multiple iPhone carriers). Sales estimates vary pretty widely, but many suggest Apple will sell between 9 million and 13 million iPhones through Verizon this year–a big boost no matter how you look at it. The big lines will return with the debut of iPhone 5.

PREVIOUSLY: Verizon’s iPhone Sales So Amazing They Can’t Even Put a Number On It

[Image Credit: Christine Bartolucci ]

One of the tidbits from the call was just how strong Apple’s business has been in Asia, particularly China. Apple’s four stores in China, on average, get more visitors and generate more revenue than the company’s stores anywhere else. And, if you have been to Apple’s stores in New York or San Francisco, that’s saying something.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said the company decided several years back that of the largest developing economies–Brazil, India, Russia and China–it was China that represented the greatest opportunity. As a result, he said, the company has invested enormous energy there.

“The results of that have been staggering,” he said.

In the latest quarter, Apple had $2.6 billion in revenue from Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan). That’s up four times from a year ago and nearly what the company did in the entire prior fiscal year. Apple launched a China-specific online store back in October to go along with the four physical locations (including the one in Pudong, shown here).

The company also saw strong results in Korea, led by sales of the iPhone and iPad. For the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, Apple had nearly $5 billion in sales, more than two and a half times what it had a year ago. Sales in Japan, which Apple counts separately, were up 83 percent year-over-year, to more than $1.4 billion.

“We’re placing more and more resource in these areas and continue to look for expansion possibilities,” Cook said.

• Apple’s Cook Aims to Reassure Wall Street on Apple’s Future
• A lot of iSales: Apple sold 7.3 Million iPads, 16.2 Million iPhones in December Quarter
• Apple’s Earnings Insanely Great

The year-old company has big-name backers and lots of interest from tech’s A-list. But when you start talking about what the company is up to–a structured database of objects, compiled primarily by machines–things get a little fuzzier.

Here’s another way to look at what the company is doing: TheFancy.com. It’s ThingD’s consumer site (and where you’ll now end up if you try heading to http://www.thingd.com).

This one is easier to understand. It’s a catalog of stuff people like, illustrated with photos they’ve taken or pictures they’ve found on the Web.

See something you like, and Fancy will tell you more about it; find someone who has interesting taste and Fancy will show you more stuff they like. You can also see what Ashton Kutcher likes, if that floats your boat.

And there is an iPhone app, of course.

There’s no business there yet, but you can easily imagine how Fancy could add e-commerce into the mix, if it gets scale. Which makes it quite similar to other social/stuff/catalog start-ups like Svpply.

The big difference is that Fancy is powered by ThingD’s database, which is supposed to be doing some very heavy lifting, and that Fancy/ThingD has some very serious expectations. The kind you get when you get backing from people like Andreessen Horowitz, Allen & Co., Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Chris Hughes right out of the gate.

You can see where this is going, or at least where it’s supposed to go. ThingD’s ambition to catalog lots and lots and lots of stuff puts it in the same sandbox, theoretically, that heavyweights like Amazon and eBay are already playing in. And Google, of course. The folks at Facebook, among other big tech companies you know, are paying attention.

With the exception of a Sun Valley showcase, ThingD/Fancy has stayed mostly quiet for the past year. But now, as 29-year-old founder Joe Einhorn gets ready to open up Fancy to the general public, he’s trying to explain what he’s doing to the rest of the world. This New York Observer profile is especially well-done.

I thought it’d be fun to get him on camera and let him tell his story in his own words, so I dropped by his very unstart-up-like office (it’s on top of the Apple Store in New York’s meatpacking district!) and he put up with my brutal cold and my caveman questions.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101223/what-is-thingd-why-did-it-make-the-fancy-and-whats-up-with-those-fancy-offices-lets-ask-founder-joe-einhorn/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101026/apple-no-white-iphones-til-spring/ http://allthingsd.com/20101026/apple-no-white-iphones-til-spring/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:58:12 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=51400 Apple’s white iPhone 4 is a bit further off than this morning’s update to the Apple Store iPhone application suggests. The company tells me that the device won’t hit the market until next year. Said a company spokesperson, “We’re sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone yet again, but we’ve decided to delay its release until this spring.”

No word on why the company has again delayed the device’s release. Presumably it’s got something to do with the manufacturing challenges that Apple had alluded to in the past.

In any event, it’s disappointing news for those of us holding out for the white model, which Apple this summer said would be available later this year. At this rate, we may see the iPhone 5 before we see the white iPhone 4….

PREVIOUSLY

• Steve Specifically Asked for Snowfall White and They Came Back Navajo White
• What Happened to the White iPhone 4?

[Image credit: Floptech via MacRumors]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101026/apple-no-white-iphones-til-spring/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100930/china-iphone-craze-breeds-scalpers/ http://allthingsd.com/20100930/china-iphone-craze-breeds-scalpers/#comments Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:32:03 +0000 Loretta Chao http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=30516 Apple (AAPL) customers who were hoping the company’s recently expanded presence in China would mean easier access to officially sold iPhone 4s have been disappointed, but a run on the devices has been kind to at least one group: gadget scalpers.

Apple opened two new stores—one in Beijing and another in Shanghai—last Friday, doubling the number of Apple retail outlets in China. The company also officially launched the iPhone 4 on the same day, marking the fastest roll-out of a new Apple device in China.

But as of Thursday morning, Apple’s flagship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun Village mall was sold out of the new smartphone. As a result, scalpers, who bought up iPhone 4s earlier in the week, are now lurking outside the store ready to pounce on anyone who walks out without merchandise.

“Want to buy an iPhone 4?” they say. “Come with us.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100930/china-iphone-craze-breeds-scalpers/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100920/iphone-4-hits-china-saturday/ http://allthingsd.com/20100920/iphone-4-hits-china-saturday/#comments Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:00:18 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=48849 At 8 am on Saturday, September 25, Apple’s Hong Kong Plaza store in Shanghai and its Xidan Joy City store in Beijing will open for the first time, bringing the iPhone 4 to China. The handset, in 16 GB and 32 GB models will be sold contract-free for 4,999 Yuan (about $743) and 5,999 Yuan (about $892); They will also be available on contract through China Unicom.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100920/iphone-4-hits-china-saturday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100805/apple-stores-raking-in-revenue/ http://allthingsd.com/20100805/apple-stores-raking-in-revenue/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 10:05:55 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=46190 How’s this for a data point: Apple’s (AAPL) retail store revenue increased 72.8 percent year over year to $2.58 billion in the June quarter. That means, according to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf, Apple Store revenue for that period was greater than the company’s total quarterly revenue from the second quarter of fiscal 1996 through the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004.

The engine driving those rising revenues? The iPad, whose launch generated a 38.7 percent increase in visitors per store, a 52.9 percent increase in same-store revenues, and a stunning 106.3 percent increase in non-Mac revenues (click image to enlarge).

“Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, has often said the company is built on three legs–the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone,” Wolf wrote in a note to clients. “We previously argued that the Apple Stores represented the fourth leg of the stool, given their outstanding success in building the Apple brand and in attracting Windows users to the Mac platform. However, with the launch of the iPad, Apple just added the fourth leg of the stool.”

Or it began building a second stool.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100805/apple-stores-raking-in-revenue/feed/ 0