Asked during a pretrial hearing Thursday for her thoughts on a likely outcome, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said her view is that the U.S. Justice Department will prevail over Apple.

Said Cote, “I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books, and that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that.”

Though delivered with a caveat noting that she has not yet reviewed all the evidence in the case, and that her view was delivered without “the benefit of the testimony of the witnesses and further argument from counsel,” Cote’s remarks are a little unusual, to say the least, and don’t bode particularly well for Apple’s chances at trial.

That said, they also don’t reflect particularly well on Cote’s impartiality. The case hasn’t even been heard, and she has just gone on record saying she is reasonably certain that the plaintiff will win. And while her comments don’t quite rise to the level of smack talk that undermined Thomas Penfield Jackson’s ruling in the United States v. Microsoft case, one could imagine them resurfacing at a later date in an appeal if this trial goes south for Apple. Cote here is commenting on a potential outcome for the case without having heard testimony from Apple’s witnesses or the cross-examination of the DOJ’s witnesses. That’s a crucial test of truth. And if this case does end up in appeal, Cote’s apparent prejudging here could be harmful to her ruling.

Apple disputed Cote’s remarks and characterized them as premature.

“Apple fundamentally disagrees with the judge’s preliminary comments,” Apple attorney Orin Snyder told AllThingsD. “We look forward to presenting our side of the evidence and bringing our witnesses to court. We will prove that Apple did nothing wrong and that consumers greatly benefited from Apple’s entry into a new and emerging market.”

The case heads to bench trial on June 3.

But now, as it finds itself under increasing scrutiny for its business practices and tax policies, the company is ramping up its Washington lobbying efforts.

In 2012, Apple spent $1,970,000 on lobbying, according to Open Secrets. This year, Reuters reports, it’s on track to spend double that. So, close to $4 million.

That’s not a massive lobbying expenditure; certainly it pales in comparison to those of rivals like Google and Microsoft, which doled out $18 million and $8 million, respectively. But it’s high for Apple, which a decade ago spent a little more than half a million dollars on lobbying. And it reflects a renewed effort to make its voice heard by D.C. policymakers, one that began in early 2011 with the hiring of Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, a formidable lobbying firm with a number of executives who did stints in the Bush administration and the Republican National Committee.

Not at all surprising, given Apple CEO Tim Cook’s calls this week for a “dramatic simplification” of U.S. tax code that should eliminate corporate tax expenditures, lower overall tax rates, and make it easier to repatriate funds from overseas. If Apple truly wants a corporate tax rate in the “mid-20s” and a single-digit repatriation rate, as Cook said, it’s going to have to fight for them in Washington.

The price cut applies to the purchase of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 in conjunction with a two-year contract with Verizon, AT&T or Sprint.

The company is also doing some shorter-term promotions over Memorial Day, cutting the price on several popular but older Android models. From May 26 to June 1, Best Buy is selling Samsung’s Galaxy S III for $49 on AT&T or Sprint, a $50 price cut. Meanwhile, it is offering the HTC Droid DNA for Verizon for $49 ($150 savings) and the HTC One X on AT&T for free (a $100 price cut).

The moves come as Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 is now available for a variety of carriers and with Apple’s iPhones getting a bit longer in the tooth. Discounts on the iPhone are infrequent but not unheard of, particularly in the weeks and months leading up to a new model.

The new actions, which include a second complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission and a federal suit in Southern California, come on top of existing legal actions that date back to last year.

“We began actions against HTC in 2012 to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies,” Nokia said. “Since then, despite the German courts confirming infringements of Nokia patents in HTC products, HTC has shown no intention to end its practices; instead it has tried to shift responsibility to its suppliers. We have therefore taken these further steps to hold HTC accountable for its actions.”

An HTC representative was not immediately available for comment.

Overall, Nokia has asserted 50 patents in its various complaints around the world, including nine that were added through the new actions.

Nokia’s litigation with HTC is just one of many patent disputes in the mobile world, a legal landscape that includes battles between Samsung and Apple, and between Microsoft and Google’s Motorola unit.

There have been some settlements in the industry of late, including a deal between HTC and Apple that was announced in November, and a number of licensing deals between Microsoft and various Android sellers.

Update: HTC said it will take a look at the latest legal papers.

“Upon receiving the official document, HTC is to consider all legal options to protect our rights,” the company said in a statement.

So you can see why they’d try a new one, using the exact same format, music and spec-less pitch. The only difference is that this time, instead of focusing on the notion that iPhones = cameras, Apple is reminding you that iPhones also = personal stereos.

So why don’t I like this one quite as much as the first?

My gut: Because when you take a picture, you’re probably doing it with the hope of sharing it with someone.

And while Apple makes a point of showing some scenarios where the iPhone brings music to more than one person, it is honest about the primary use case: Just you, your phone and some ear buds, sealed off from the rest of the world.

Honest. But not as much fun.

(Bonus content for hardcore Apple tea-leaf readers: Note that several of the shots in the camera ad showed iPhone owners using Facebook-owned Instagram. In this one, there’s no indication what service or software iPhone users are listening to.)

While the subcommittee panel described Apple on paper as an “egregious offender” that has “sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance,” it took a very different tone while meeting in person with Cook. “So nice to meet you. I have an iPad,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R.-N.H., said while greeting the Apple CEO — a cordial, but fawning, welcome, surpassed only by that of her counterpart, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. who said simply: “I love Apple. … I love Apple.”

All of this was great fodder for Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” team. As Stewart quipped during last night’s broadcast, “Who are those people? What is the opposite of a Genius Bar?”

“Apparently there is nothing Apple can do to get us mad at them,” Stewart marveled. “We could find out they’re using kitten hearts to power iPhones and we’d be like, ‘Well, if it doubles battery life, I’ll take two!’”

Yahoo’s design chief, the effervescent Tim Parsey, will be leaving his job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, sources said.

As SVP of User Experience Design at Yahoo, which centralized the task under Parsey, he has been part of a range of redesigns of its major properties, including its homepage, Flickr photo-sharing site, email and more.

As I noted when Parsey arrived in early 2011, “in the 67-ring circus that has been Yahoo’s product organization, design was widely dispersed.”

Translation: It was not pretty, unless you enjoyed the Web stylings of 1997.

Parsey certainly had the cred in the design industry, with stints at Apple, Microsoft’s entertainment and devices unit, Mattel and Motorola. Just before Yahoo, he was a principal at a Seattle-based design firm called shiftalliance.

The British native ran Apple’s design studio for five years in the early 1990s and was the main dude behind Motorola’s freaky V70 switchblade mobile phone in 2001.

It’s not clear why he is leaving now, or where the crackerjack designer is headed. But, amid a lot of Yahoo turmoil since he arrived, Parsey certainly stabilized the design culture at the company.

Also in play, according to numerous sources: New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has a very “hands-on” style with regard to design — she pretty much considers herself the last and only stop on that train, among others, based on her experience at Google running a number of products including its pristine and much acclaimed front page search box. No surprise, then, she has involved herself strongly in the design process.

On his LinkedIn profile, which still lists him as working at Yahoo, Parsey talked about his ethos of design there:

“This is about weaving a global UX and UER organization from the existing 200+ designers and researchers that today support an array of different businesses. It’s part of a rather cool broader corporate transition project. It’s also very much about establishing design as a potent, world-class entity that’s fun to be part of.”

He also notes: “These days I’m very excited about the correlation between internal cultures that are truly ‘meaningful’ to designers ( and other functions ), and world-class design innovation.”

That’s a massive amount of product to move in the first month after the device’s commercial debut. But, as noted here last week, this number doesn’t refer to devices sold to consumers, but to carriers: “The S4 may well be selling much faster than its predecessor, but not so much faster that there will be 10 million units in consumer hands next week. Some will still be sitting on carrier shelves awaiting purchase.”

And that’s worth noting. Because while many handset vendors like to tout shipments into the channel as sales, there is some variation. Apple, when it posts quarterly earnings, reports iPhone “sell in” numbers to retail partners. But when it makes its annual “First Weekend iPhone Sales Top TK” news release, it’s referring to sales to consumers. So, when Apple said last September that it sold more than five million of its iPhone 5 in three days, it wasn’t referring to devices sitting on retail shelves, but to those purchased by end users.

Remarking on a U.S. Senate investigation that claims Apple avoided taxes on tens of billions of dollars by holding significant profits in three Irish subsidiaries, Ireland’s Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the country did not work out a special corporate tax rate of only 2 percent with Apple. “I do not want to be the whipping boy for some misunderstanding in a hearing in the U.S. Congress,” Noonan said during a parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday.

In other words, if Apple was able to markedly reduce its tax bill in the U.S. and the rest of the world, it was because of a gap between different tax jurisdictions, not some magic deal with Ireland.

“Maybe there was a magician, but the magician wasn’t living down in Cork,” Noonan quipped. “Because [Apple] is not tax resident in Ireland, [it is] not liable to Irish tax.”

Noonan’s comments echo those made earlier in the day by Barry O’Leary, head of IDA Ireland, the agency responsible for industrial development in Ireland, and the one that would presumably have presided over Apple’s special tax avoidance deal — if there were one.

“It is very, very important to state that there is no special deal for Apple or any other company,” O’Leary told RTÉ radio. “I’m certainly in a position to say that nothing like that has been agreed by the Irish government. That’s definitely not the case. Just because you heard it yesterday in a Senate committee doesn’t mean … it’s factually correct.”

Indeed. There’s no special deal here, just some clever and totally legal tax planning on Apple’s part. Whose fault is that?

As I noted here earlier this week, “Maybe the Senate’s time is better spent overhauling the U.S. tax policy that has allowed Apple and other companies to legally minimize their tax liability in the first place. If what Apple was called before the Senate for doing isn’t illegal, isn’t the big policy question today simply whether it should be allowed to do it in the future?”

Walt Mossberg: Will there be an Apple product ever made again in the United States?
Tim Cook: I want there to be.
Walt: You what?
Tim: I want there to be.
Walt: You want there to be.

– Apple CEO Tim Cook and Walt Mossberg at D10, May 2012

When Apple announced its intention to manufacture one of its existing Mac lines exclusively in the U.S. last December, the company didn’t say which line, or where in the country it planned to build it. Now, some five months later, the answer to one of those questions has finally emerged.

During a Tuesday appearance before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed the state in which its Made-in-USA Mac will be manufactured: Texas.

“We’re investing $100 million to build a Mac product line here in the U.S.,” Cook said. “The product will be assembled in Texas, include components made in Illinois and Florida, and rely on equipment produced in Kentucky and Michigan.”

Apple’s pledge to build some Macs in the U.S. doesn’t mean that the company is setting up its own production facilities. Cook has said in the past that Apple will work with manufacturing partners on this particular effort. And now that he has disclosed the state in which Mac production will be handled, the identity of Apple’s likely manufacturing partner is becoming clearer, as well.

Foxconn operates plants in Texas and has long handled a lot of Apple’s hardware production and assembly. Recently, the company said it was expanding its existing manufacturing operations in the U.S. to meet the needs of certain unnamed customers. Not definitive proof that Foxconn will manufacture Apple’s Made-in-USA Mac, but certainly a clear indication that it might.

Previously:

• Rumor Mill Adds Mac Mini to Apple’s “Made in USA” Plans
• Tim Cook: Apple Will Build Some Macs in the U.S. Next Year

Among the findings of an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are figures that show Apple’s reported taxes substantially exceed the sum it actually pays the U.S. Treasury.

One factor: Apple uses a conservative approach to accounting for taxes on its overseas earnings. It has been setting aside billions of dollars a year in provisions against possible taxes on income that it earned abroad. But those taxes wouldn’t be due until Apple brought the funds home to the U.S., something Chief Executive Tim Cook said he has no intention of doing.

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Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

That was the gist of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Tuesday: Apple is a good corporate citizen that pays all taxes due.

“We pay all the taxes we owe. Every single dollar,” Cook said during a Tuesday morning hearing. “We not only comply with the laws but we comply with the spirit of the laws. We don’t depend on tax gimmicks.”

No gimmicks, just standard U.S. tax code which, according to the Senate panel’s investigation, allowed Apple to pay little or no corporate taxes on at least $74 billion in profits over the past four years.

And to be clear, that’s not illegal. Indeed, the Senate investigation into Apple’s practices found no evidence that the company did anything but comply with tax law. This, despite the fact that investigators also found that three of Apple’s subsidiaries in Ireland claim to have no responsibility to pay income taxes to any country, and one of them that reported $30 billion in income over the past four years and didn’t file an income tax return for any of it.

Extraordinary, right? But those Irish subsidiaries? They’re authorized by U.S. law. They comply with all U.S. tax regulations. And they’re audited by the IRS. Which says far more about our flawed corporate tax system than Apple’s alleged abuse of it. Given the opportunity to shelter overseas profits from U.S. taxes, what company wouldn’t take it?

As Martin Sullivan, chief economist at nonprofit Tax Analysts, told the Washington Post, “[Apple] would be stupid not to do it. It’s the loopholes in the U.S. tax laws that makes this all possible. All their competitors are doing it.”

If that’s the case, maybe the Senate’s time is better spent overhauling the U.S. tax policy that has allowed Apple and other companies to legally minimize their tax liability in the first place. If what Apple was called before the Senate for doing isn’t illegal, isn’t the big policy question today simply whether it should be allowed to do it in the future?

Here’s the latest reminder, via the broadband usage report Sandvine put out earlier this month. The Internet services company said that mobile devices now account for 20 percent of traffic on home broadband networks. That’s up from 9 percent a year ago.

If you own an iPhone or an Android tablet or whatever, you know exactly why this is: You spend a lot of time with these things on the couch or at the kitchen table or wherever. (Remember how Steve Jobs demoed the iPad, after all — on that comfy leather chair.)

And a lot of that time you are watching or listening to something — Sandvine says that 25 percent of all audio and video data sent to mobile devices now happens at home.

Here’s Sandvine’s breakdown of entertainment traffic to mobile devices at home. Missing from the chart are two interesting Apple factoids: Sandvine says that the iPad accounts for more home traffic than any other device, at more than 10 percent; and it says that if you added up all of Apple’s devices (iPads, iPhones, Macs, etc.), the company ends up with more than 45 percent of home broadband usage.

“[These] are not issues that arise from the Irish taxation system,” Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore said Tuesday, responding to a U.S. Senate investigation that alleges that Apple dodged taxes on tens of billions of dollars in profits held in Irish subsidiaries. “They are issues that arise from the taxation systems in other jurisdictions and that is an issue that has to be addressed first of all in those jurisdictions.”

Gilmore’s comments come ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s testimony before a U.S. Senate hearing into the company’s offshore tax practices. Cook is expected to be grilled on Senate investigation findings that allege Apple moved billions of dollars in profits to subsidiaries in Ireland to significantly reduce its tax liability. Apple vehemently denies this, arguing that it does not use its Irish subsidiaries as “tax gimmicks.”

According to NPD, Mac sales for the month of April in North America were flat year over year. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who reported the data, said that’s a “neutral to slight positive” data point for Apple, relative to expectations for its Mac business.

Why neutral? Munster’s own forecast calls for worldwide Mac sales for the June quarter to decline about 5 percent year over year. And, last quarter, supply issues hampered sales of Apple’s newer Macs. So if NPD is seeing flat sales for April, that potentially bodes well for the current quarter.

Level Mac sales aren’t great, but they’re obviously better than down Mac sales. And now that Apple is looking to other devices like the iPad to fuel its growth, a planate trend in Mac sales isn’t really cause for much concern. As Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly said, the iPad is now the company’s growth engine, not the Mac.

“With iPad in particular, we have the mother of all opportunities because the Windows market is much, much larger than the Mac market is,” Cook said back in January. “And I think it is clear that it’s already cannibalizing some, and I think there’s a tremendous amount of more opportunity there. As you know I’ve said for two or three years now that I believe the tablet market will be larger than the PC market at some point, and I still believe that. And you can see by the growth in tablets and the pressure on PCs that those lines are beginning to converge.”

And as they continue to do so, declining Mac sales will be less and less cause for concern — as long as the iPad continues to exploit that “mother of all opportunities” to which Cook referred.

Yahoo, which had dropped off the important BrandZ Top 100 list several years ago, scratched its way on again this year at No. 92.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant had last been on the key list of brands in 2009, when it had a brand value of $7.9 billion. It now has a brand value of $9.8 billion, which is still down from its $11.4 billion in 2008.

And that’s tiny in comparison to Apple, which remains No. 1 on the list with a brand value of $185.1 billion. Google ranked as No. 2 with a brand value of $113.7 billion.

Apple rival Samsung’s brand value rose by by 51 percent to $21.4 billion, clocking in to the No. 30 spot.

In tech, Amazon’s brand value was $45.7 billion, rising 34 percent to No. 14. IBM is No. 3 with a brand value of $112 billion.

And more: Microsoft (No. 7, $69.8 billion, down nine percent); Facebook (No. 31, $21.3 billion, down 36 percent); and eBay (No. 47, $17.7 billion, up 40 percent).

The eight-year-old BrandZ list, which is much watched by marketers, is commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor.

Here’s the full chart of the list and report:

Top100BrandZ2013

BrandZ Top 100 Media Deck 2013 U S

And here is a super-cool infographic too:

2013_BrandZ_Top100_Infographic

The unusual result is possible because the iPhone maker’s key foreign subsidiaries argue they are residents of nowhere, according to the investigators’ report, which will be discussed at a hearing on Tuesday where Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will testify.

The finding comes from a lengthy investigation into the technology giant’s tax practices by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).

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At a media event in New York today, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced a new office in Times Square for the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

“From one Mayor to another,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Mayer (get it?) about locating in Manhattan’s iconic location, which will house 500 Yahoo employees.

But not Tumblr, which will remain blissfully downtown, even after its $1.1 billion all-cash acquisition by Yahoo announced today.

“We’re very happy that Tumblr is a home-grown company,” said Bloomberg,

Irony alert: Yahoo’s new digs in the Big Apple is actually the old HQ of the New York Times.

“Twenty years ago there were a lot of Yahoos in New York,” said the Bloomberg, channeling Jackie Mason and then touting the local tech industry and reeling off the stats.

Boiled down: Geeks rule.

Mayer also talked briefly about the acquisition of Tumblr and repeated the trying-really-hard-to-be-wacky, “we’re going to try not to screw it up” promise.

Mayer then introduced another promise — a commitment to fix Yahoo’s last major acquisition screw-up, Flickr.

Yahoo exec Adam Cahan, who is in charge of the photo-sharing service and who uses the term “awesome” quite a lot, came on next to show the changes.

He introduced a new design, which looks kinda like Instagram and kinda like Flipboard and kinda like Apple and kinda like Facebook’s homepage. It does bring Yahoo up to speed with others in the key photo-sharing space, which is good.

(Sorry, I cannot be more detailed, since I could only see it via Internet, because AllThingsD.com was not invited to the event by Yahoo.)

From what I can tell, it’s very image-centric with big photos and little text.

Cahan also introed a new Google Android mobile version and said that Flickr will offer a terabyte of space for free to users, which is about 537,731 photos.

Then he talked about a terabyte a lot, claiming that “no other Internet company has offered you a terabyte” of space. (Well, I would imagine Google and Facebook will now do so in a New York minute.)

Some very nice man with a German accent demoed it. (Again, I am not there and did not see a name going by on screen, and I can’t ask Yahoo PR his name.)

It’s purty, for sure, and nice to be able to upload photos in their full fidelity without worrying about space constraints.

Mayer called it “spectacular,” “bigger” and, of course, “awesome.”

It is certainly much more striking than how the antiquated Flickr homepage used to look like — which was circa 1969. But, like I said, kinda like what others have already done, although these updates are certainly a welcome change for Flickr.

Mayer then ran a very cute video for the changes, which, well, was kinda like an Apple video.

“Flickr was awesome once and then it languished,” said Mayer, declaring victory already. “And now it’s awesome again.”

In a Q&A after, Mayer, Cahan and the nice German guy answered questions about integration of Tumblr and Flickr (not yet!); how it was like or not like Instagram (no cropping apparently — which is exactly what is fantastic about Instagram); the terabyte (it’s awesome!); and more Tumblr deets (you know them already); monetization; and a bizarre one about redundancy so you don’t lose photos.

Mayer also said that Yahoo had bought 11 billboards in Times Square to show off Flickr and noted there was a party after for the media. (Except the unchosen, so I am enjoying a nice glass of Cabernet all by my lonesome. Frankly, it’s awesome!)

(Photo credit: Kevin Tachman for Times Square Alliance.)

Asa Mathat / AllThingsD.com

Apple has been accused by the Subcommittee of creating the “Holy Grail of tax avoidance,” and Cook is travelling to D.C. well armed to defend the company from such accusations. He’ll present some 18 pages of prepared testimony touching on everything from the “extraordinary” sums Apple pays annually in corporate income tax to the rationale for its massive foreign cash holdings and a careful rebuttal to allegations that it uses its Irish subsidiary to avoid U.S. taxes. On that last issue, which has drawn a fair amount of scrutiny, the company’s argument is particularly pointed:

According to Cook’s prepared testimony, “Apple wants to make clear to the Subcommittee that the Company does not use its Irish subsidiaries or any other entities to engage in the following tax practices that were the focus of the Subcommittee’s September 20, 2012 hearing, entitled Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code. Specifically, Apple does not move its intellectual property into offshore tax havens and use it to sell products back into the U.S. to avoid U.S. tax, nor does it use revolving loans from CFCs to fund its domestic operations.”

Also included in Cook’s testimony is a condemnation of the current U.S. tax system, which Apple argues “undermines U.S. competitiveness,” and a proposal for reforms that might encourage companies to repatriate their offshore cash.

Apple has always believed in the simple, not the complex. This is evident in the Company’s products and the way it conducts itself. In this spirit, Apple has recommended to the Obama Administration and several members of Congress – and suggests to the Subcommittee today – to pass legislation that dramatically simplifies the U.S. corporate tax system. This comprehensive reform should:

• Be revenue neutral;
• Eliminate all corporate tax expenditures;
• Lower corporate income tax rates; and
• Implement a reasonable tax on foreign earnings that allows free movement of capital back to the U.S.

Apple recognizes these and other improvements in the US corporate tax system may increase the Company’s taxes. Apple is not opposed to such a result if it occurs in the context of an overall improvement in efficiency, flexibility and competitiveness. Apple believes the changes it proposes will stimulate the creation of American jobs, increase domestic investment and promote economic growth.

Cook’s testimony comes amid increased government scrutiny of Apple and its overseas cash holdings. As of the end of the March quarter, the company was holding about $100 billion outside the United States, with no intent of repatriating it under current U.S. tax law.

Here’s Cook’s testimony in its entirety, and below it the Senate Subcommittee report accusing Apple of avoiding some $10 billion in taxes per year.

Apple_Testimony_to_PSI

Subcommittee-Memo-on-Offshore-Profit-Shifting-Apple

That’s what David Goldstein, president of research outfit Channel Marketing, said of Apple after the grand opening of the company’s first retail stores in 2001. Yet 12 years later, the lights in Apple’s stores remain lit, there are 406 of them spread across 14 countries, and they boast hands-down some of the most valuable retail space in the world.

In the first quarter, Apple’s average revenue per store topped out at about $13 million, reaching its highest level ever for a non-holiday quarter, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu. And the company collected a record $57.60 in revenue per visitor, with about $12 of that being profit.

Impressive numbers for Apple, which continues to outperform all other retailers on a per-square-foot basis in the U.S., by a very wide margin. Apple Stores earn twice as much per square foot as Tiffany & Co., the second-most-lucrative U.S. retailer, and three times as much as Lululemon Athletica, the third-most-lucrative.

And the company’s average revenue per visitor will only improve as it expands internationally, particularly in big untapped markets like China. Apple essentially doubled down on its retail presence in greater China over the past year, raising the number of stores to 11 from six. And according to CEO Tim Cook, that’s just the beginning.

“This isn’t nearly what we need, and it’s not the final by any means,” Cook said earlier this year. “We’re not even close to that. But I feel that we’re making great progress, and I am very happy with how things are going.”

And whatever the China market may lack in individual wealth, it makes up for in volume.

“This is one of the great paradoxes in Apple retail: The more Apple expands internationally, the higher their average retail revenue becomes, despite them opening stores in emerging markets such as China,” said Carl Howe, VP for research and data sciences at Yankee Group. “As a proof point, the New York flagship 5th Avenue Apple store used to be one of the highest grossing stores in the entire Apple chain, pulling in somewhere around $350 million in revenue in 2010. Today — based on anecdotal evidence, but I believe this to be true — nearly every Apple store in China sells as much or more than the 5th Avenue store. China may have a lower percentage of wealthy people than the U.S., but they have more absolute numbers of them.

“What I think this all says is that Apple has itself as a global aspirational brand, and that people will go to amazing economic lengths to own Apple products,” Howe said. “So long as Apple maintains that premium brand and value, the only limits to its retail growth is how many stores it can build.”

Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun said at an industry forum in Seoul this week that S4 shipments will top 10 million in a few days. This, less than a month after the device’s debut in some 60 countries.

“We are confident that we will pass more than 10 million sales of the S4 next week,” Shin said, according to the Korea Times. “It is selling much faster than the previous model S3.”

Great news for Samsung, but news that comes with an important caveat: The company here isn’t talking about retail sales to consumers, but sales to carriers. Reached for comment, Samsung confirmed to AllThingsD that Shin was indeed referring to shipments into the channel when he offered that 10 million unit number.

Ten million handsets shipped into the channel in such a short time is still a hell of a milestone. But there’s a big difference between that and consumer sales of 10 million. The S4 may well be selling much faster than its predecessor, but not so much faster that there will be 10 million units in consumer hands next week. Some will still be sitting on carrier shelves awaiting purchase.

It’s worth noting that Samsung is not alone in reporting smartphone “sales” this way. Many companies do — including Apple. When the company posts quarterly earnings, it reports iPhone “sell in” numbers — numbers that include products it has shipped to retail partners like AT&T, Best Buy and Walmart, but not necessarily sold to end consumers. From Apple’s latest earnings statement:

The Company recognizes revenue when persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred, the sales price is fixed or determinable, and collection is probable. Product is considered delivered to the customer once it has been shipped and title and risk of loss have been transferred. For most of the Company’s product sales, these criteria are met at the time the product is shipped. For online sales to individuals, for some sales to education customers in the U.S., and for certain other sales, the Company defers revenue until the customer receives the product because the Company retains a portion of the risk of loss on these sales during transit.

Now, Apple has some 400 retail stores worldwide, and they — along with the company’s Web sites — sell a lot of iPhones directly into the hands of consumers. But they didn’t do that for every one of the 37.4 million the company sold in its recent quarter. Indeed, during Apple’s last earnings call the company said it had 11.6 million iPhones in channel inventory during the period.

Those were devices “shipped” to retail partners. But for Apple’s purposes, they were “sold.” Same story for Samsung.