European Apple Stores in 6-18 months....

[medea]

In an interview with Sunday Business newspaper, Pascal Cagni, Apple's vice president and general manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa, revealed that the company is planning aggressive expansion into the consumer retail market.
Cagni told Sunday Business reporter Tony Glover that Apple hopes to develop its own retail chain in key western European locations such as London and Paris along the lines of the model rolled out last year in the US, where it opened 50 stores in 250 days.
Although no date has been set for the first opening, Apple has revealed that it hopes to have a European retail chain within six to 18 months. http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/top_news_item.cfm?NewsID=5922

Good news for Apple and the European market....they need to focus more on the overseas growth potential.

 

[4409723]

Re: European Apple Stores in 6-18 months....

I can't wait, but sadly I will have to. Looks like I'll have to stick with resellers for now. Although some of them on Tottenham Court Road (London) are as close as you can get without Steve opening the place.

 

[bennetsaysargh]

i wish i could go but i can't because duh i'm all the way in new york

 

[aethier]

I WANT APPLE RETAIL STORES IN MONTREAL!!!

 

[kenkooler]

I hope this is the beginning of a chain of Apple stores worldwide

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Good for Apple, they should have done it a while ago.

One question for you Europeans - if they open Apple stores across Europe do you see them pricing everything in Euros and making the prices the same across the continent or will they be slightly different country to country?

How will that differ from the current price comparisons?

D

 

[alex_ant]

I hope this comes in conjunction with them lowering their European prices. From what I've heard, they're pretty bad. They may have to do that if they want to move enough machines to increase their 2% market share or whatever it is.

 

[iAlan]

Originally posted by dukestreet
... do you see them pricing everything in Euros and making the prices the same across the continent...how will that differ from the current price comparisons?

D

Good question, I'd be interested to find out too. I just checked a couple of the on-line Apple Stores in Europe and the prices before sales tax/VAT/whatever-you-want-to-call-it are the same.

I guess low tax countries will be cheaper for the consumer.

 

[robbieduncan]

Originally posted by dukestreet
Good for Apple, they should have done it a while ago.

One question for you Europeans - if they open Apple stores across Europe do you see them pricing everything in Euros and making the prices the same across the continent or will they be slightly different country to country?

How will that differ from the current price comparisons?

D

Probably not in the UK as we don't have the Euro yet Damn it lets get with the program.

 

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I'm glad the UK hasn't gone with the Euro yet. When I finally move back down to Australia or New Zealand, I want my money to triple (like it would if I went back now...).

If Apple launched stores worldwide, they'd have to reduce their prices to match their stores in other countries - otherwise, the price difference would be there for all to see.

So - here's hoping they do. For example - just look at the prices for Apple products on the Apple Store site in Australia. WOW! They're ridiculously high (especially when in relation to GDP).

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by kiwi_the_iwik
So - here's hoping they do. For example - just look at the prices for Apple products on the Apple Store site in Australia. WOW! They're ridiculously high (especially when in relation to GDP).

And since many machines are shipped from Taiwan, its amazing that the prices are so high, you'd think that they'd be a little better.

It would be very interesting to see what makes up the diferentiation in prices, tax, shipping and reseller markup. Every country has import taxes, but I can't believe that its that different one place to another.

D

 

[edesignuk]

Wooooohooooo!

...sorry...got a *little* carried away ...

 

[pantagruel]

what apple should do is open a big apple store in a place like japan, the japanese would go crazy over it and they could really do better in sales over there.