Apple intends to open 35-40 retail stores in 2006

I know New Orleans was one of the larger metro areas that did not yet have an Apple Store (I forget the site, but they tracked this kind of info). C'mon down in time for Jazz Fest, Apple; retail space is gonna be dirt (water?) cheap down here for a while. :)

C'mon Newington or Portsmouth, NH. It'd be a perfect 3 state hub, quasi near population hubs (we're used to driving up here). And NH's sales tax free. It'd be a great locatimg strategy.

My only beef with this news of new stores is that 80% of them will end up in states like Texas or California which already have multiple stores. While I can understand there's a lot of people there, there are also a lot of people in other areas, like Salt Lake City. And since a lot of these new stores tend to go near schools and universities, I sure wish Apple would consider Salt Lake for a store. Lots of places to go downtown, several universities within 20 mins of eachother and only 5 stores in town that sell Macs (CompUSA and BestBuy stores) that hardly have a selection. C'mon Apple.... show us less populated states that you want to sell us your products.

Corpus Christi, TX *crosses fingers* It'll never happen. This is the technological ass-crack of Texas.

"I don't trust the Mom & Pop Apple Resellers I do trust Apple." I second this, with a qualifier: It depends on the reseller. Apple is the only company I can think of, offhand, where I'd rather buy directly from the source than buy from a locally owned shop, but if the shop is reputable, I'll still go there. Probably not for a big purchase, but RAM or accessories would be fine. Just no macmall.com or CompUSA for me, that's for sure.

While I'm very happy to see this, I wonder what it means for independent Apple dealers? Chris http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/

Surprised by the Apple Store success vs. the Online Apple Store? Seeing, touching and playing with Apple hardware up close and personal makes a huge difference! Having the Apple stores in major shopping malls exposes non-computer users to the Apple way. I see all sorts of shoppers many of whom never used a computer before. In addition you get a whole lot of young people looking for iPod accessories and at the same time browsing the computers. Most seem very impressed and spend quite a bit of time playing around on the Mac's. This eventually results in sales of Apple hardware. My first Apple computer was bought soon after the first Apple store in my state opened. I had been drooling over NeXT systems for years. I was running Linux primarily at home. I watched Mac OS X with great anticipation and as soon as it shipped out of beta I was salivating. Once I found the local store opened I spent 3 hours picking the brains of the sales and genius bar folks. I walked out with my first 15" PowerBook. Now four years later I have another PowerBook and a PowerMacG4 plus an iPod. I almost bought a G5 but now I think I will wait for the Intel platform to make an appearance. A quad processor ( 2 Dual Core Pentium Ds) G6 or whatever they will call it will be my next desktop. Imagine a dual core laptop! Imagine XServes with quad processors as well. Intel is going to make some serious difference! Bottom line, I would never had made such large purchases without the Apple store. I don't trust the Mom & Pop Apple Resellers I do trust Apple. The online Apple store is great but I prefer driving to the mall and walking out with the product in hand. Ordering online is reserved for other types of purchases, special deals, etc. I like the Apple store experience.

How many of those stores will be in the UK? AnDy

Is that 51% of retail sales based on Units Sold, or $$$$ sold? If they do it bu units then they probably sell more in the physical stores because of iPods. But I'm fairly sure that the online store must generate more cash than the physical ones. Oh, and poster number 1 (Peter), if you need to get something from the Apple Store (or any other online store), you should visit http://www.buy-proxy.com.

One more thing I'd like to see (as I know there will NEVER be an Apple store Nassau, Bahamas): International sales from the online store (with that I mean even if I have a U.S. address for ordering stuff - it's one of these forwarding services- i still cannot order from the online store using my Swiss credit card. it has to be a U.S. card... or a bank transfer, which is a hassle...) so plllleeeeeease Apple, I would have already poured so many more dollars into the online store if i only could use my international credit card!!!!!!!!!