Apple May Be Immune to Economy, But Stores Aren't

By  |  Friday, April 24, 2009 at 12:20 pm

applestoreApple certainly made it through this past quarter in great shape. Nobody is complaining about the company’s results, which by all accounts were stellar. However, Cupertino does have a retail arm, and like any other it’s beginning to struggle.

Average revenue per store is down 17 percent – falling from $7.1 million in the year ago quarter to $5.9 million. It could be argued that the only reason overall sales numbers were up slightly (1 percent) was the fact that 46 new locations have been added since then.

(Imagine the Wall Street carnage if Apple hadn’t opened a single store — eek.)

Thus, the company’s gotta do what its gotta do. That means layoffs — 1,600 full time employees will be cut across its 250+ stores. That would amount to about 10% off its current total workforce of around 15,600.

One thing is for sure however: the frantic pace at which Apple had been opening new retail locations appears to be a thing of the past. Sign of the times, ain’t?

More about Apple’s plans can be found in this SEC filing.

 
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4 Comments For This Post

  1. JS Says:
    April 24th, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    Ed,

    The headcount at the stores has already decreased 1,600. As in “it’s already happened”, not as in “Apple is about to layoff 1,600 people in its retail stores”.

    And it didn’t do it via layoffs. It did it via attrition. Retail, even Apple Retail, has a high turn-over. As people quit, Apple simply don’t hire someone to fill that spot.

    1600 spots over 250 stores is about 6 people per store not rehired over the last year. Not so hard to imagine, huh?

  2. APPLWatch Says:
    April 24th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    Are you sure about this story? My understanding is that it wasn’t 1,600 people laid off. It was the equivalent number of man hours cut from the stores-which is certainly not the same thing.

  3. level1alt Says:
    April 24th, 2009 at 6:06 pm

    6 less employees = 6 more costumers that will fit in the store.
    Everytime i visit apple store here in charlotte nc it’s packed full

  4. Drew Says:
    April 25th, 2009 at 9:59 am

    From what I have read, this not a number of employees, but man-hour equalivlaant. In education, we call this FTE (full time equalivalant), for example, a half-time teacher is a .5 FTE (because I guess saying half-time is too clear and easy to understand).

    -Drew

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