Best Buy to expand Apple Mac pilot to 200 stores
Best Buy Co. said Wednesday that it has agreed to expand a pilot program aimed at testing sales of Apple's Mac computer line to approximately 200 of its stores by the fall.
Best Buy said net income for the quarter ended March 3rd rose to $763 million, or $1.55 per share, up from $644 million, or $1.29, during the previous year. It added that revenues also increased 21 percent to $12.9 billion, with same-store sales rising 5.9 percent.
The expansion of the Mac pilot to 200 stores will represent a fourfold increase in exposure for Apple at the electronics retailer, which until now had been testing sales of Apple's PC line at only about 50 locations nationwide.
Best Buy initiated the pilot last June at a handful of stores located on the west coast but indicated that it would rapidly expand the program to more of its 900+ shops if the concept proved successful. Over 45 additional locations were later added to the mix in October.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley has said that a full expansion of the pilot to all of Best Buy's stores could generate as much as $400 million in additional Mac sales for Apple each year.
The Cupertino-based Mac maker is also running a similar, albeit smaller, pilot at Circuit City retail outlets located on the east coast.
29 Comments
Is there any place I can see a list of which Best Buys will be getting Mac stores inside?
OH! ... please ... please ... Sarasota FL
Best Buy that is...
Circuit City USED to sell macs. If I'm not mistaken, they stopped around the G3 iMac era... Granted that was 10 years ago... What are they so cautious about?
-Clive
Circuit City USED to sell macs. If I'm not mistaken, they stopped around the G3 iMac era... Granted that was 10 years ago... What are they so cautious about?
-Clive
Didn't Circuit City they just fire all their experienced staff to save money? Or am I thinking of another chain?
It doesn't matter how many stores you put them in. If they have mac hating moronic staff, scaring everyone away they stull won't sell. All bestbuy's seem to hate mac and tell people the most untrue bullshit about them. Litterally everytime I'm at one and in the computer section I've had to step in to argue with the employees and cut the bullshit out.
Stuff like "yeah the imac's nice but with a built in lcd, it'll burn out in a year and won't be covered by the warranty"
and
"if you wanna add more ram down the road you're gonna have to get the 3 thousand dollar g5(even though it's now mac pro) or you could just get a 700 dollar hp lol."
When I worked at bestbuy in the computer section a year and half ago (it might be 2 year now, not sure), I swear I'd have knife fights with my fellow employees over this shit.