Apple retail growth data
Research #Market · 15 comments
by Horace Dediu
Apple's retail stores increased sales by nearly 60% in Q4. This is a dramatic though not unprecedented change from Q3's 1% growth rate. The growth rate faithfully tracks iPhone releases as demonstrated in a post last quarter.
When seen on a yearly basis some of the data begin to from a picture.
- There were 332 million visitors in 2011, an increase of 29%. (This total is greater than the population of the United States.)
- The average revenue was nearly $50 million/store
- 38 stores were opened, in-line with 2010's 40 openings
- Total 2011 revenues were $16.4 billion
- About 34,600 (full time equivalent) employees were employed on average
- There were nearly 1 million visitors per store
- There were an average of 100 employees assigned to each store
- Average revenue/employee was $473,622
- Average profit/employee was $120,289
- There were about 9,600 visitors for each employee
- Each visitor generated about $50 in revenue
- The revenue per square foot was about $6,500 across all stores.
Some of these metrics are shown in the following charts relative to prior years:
15 comments
Anonymous ·
Is the average revenue/employee data for the quarter or for the year? I believe the numbers above you have are for the quarter
Thanks... Love the blog
Sacto_Joe ·
Apple's stock price has now increased about 43% over the last year. It increased 35% over the last 2 1/2 months. It's just shy of $500/share. But its P/E ratio is just barely 14. Isn't it clear to everyone by now that if Apple's share price doesn't increase mammothly from now on the P/E ratio will continue to compress? When is it going to become obvious to even the dimmest bulb that Apple is in a class all its own?
Anonymous ·
Hi Horace Thanks for your insights! There are lots of talk about "halo" affect (work, schools etc.) Is there a way to quantify this phenomanon?
$490AShareIsRejuvenating!}:-D ·
Apple's P/E multiple will continue to compress. It's practically a given unless something drastic happens like an acquisition, stock split or dividend. Otherwise, it will be the same old song being replayed again and again. Still, as a long-term shareholder, realistically speaking, I shouldn't have anything to complain about.
Alisher ·
Please clarify what CPU units stand for. Is that the · of iPhone activations in-store? In other words, a proxy for the size of direct-to-consumer distribution of iPhones? I wonder if this number is large enough, is there a way for apple to disrupt mobile operators... If Republic Wireless is bold enough to do that, why not Apple?
Anonymous ·
Horace,
In the Employees vs. Visitors scatter plot you show store visitors maxing out at 110 million with total retail personnel at about 40,000 yet you state in the text that there were 332 million visitors and 37,500 personnel.
Which is it?
Thanks! Great stuff.
Anonymous ·
I think the points on the scatter plot are quarters. The 110 million visits would have been the last blow out quarter.
jawbroken ·
Fairly sure it's laptops & desktops.
Horace Dediu ·
CPU units is what Apple calls Macs sold in its stores.
Horace Dediu ·
The scatter plot shows quarterly data and the text describes yearly data.
David Leppik ·
What's a visitor? I suspect that "visitors" actually means "visits." They're not fingerprinting everyone who walks in the door (or are they?) so even if they intend to track visitors, they're tracking visits at least for those who don't identify themselves. My understanding is that retail establishments typically confuse visits with visitors. Which leads to impossibly large statistics when you compare against population.
Which is to say that the implication that more than the entire US population visits Apple stores is probably BS.
Horace Dediu ·
Apple has always reported "visitors" not visits.
Adamyhompson3232 ·
Go to AAPLmodel.blogspot.com an check the excel files for deagol's latest model update. If you can "read" excel you can figure out how Deagol measures the halo effect.
Anonymous ·
Thanks
________________________________
Tedcr ·
Wait until iTV is released. A new product that everyone wants to see and try will be another driver to visit the Apple store.