NEW YORK –
For the fourth consecutive
year Apple will take back to Cupertino
the TWICE Best Vendor Retailer
Award.
One reason for this streak of excellence
could be found recently outside
its West 14th Street store in New York
City. On an average Tuesday morning a
dozen customers were lined up, waiting
for the doors to open at 9 a.m.
There was no special event planned
— the iPhone 5 was not yet going on
sale, and it was just another day in New
York. But this is the level of loyalty the
Apple Store has built through its excellent
customer service and in-demand
products.
Once again, Apple did not rest easy,
but charged ahead with new must-have
products over the previous 12 months,
which have seen a steady stream of Apple
products hitting store shelves and
helping drive people into its storefronts.
The iPad 2 went on sale in mid-March
and quickly sold out from not only Apple’s
stores, but most other supporting
retailers. The initial estimated reports
had up to 500,000 iPad 2s being sold
on the first day of availability.
While many tablet PC competitors
have hit the market during the year,
Apple has retained control of almost 73
percent of the market, according to the
research firm Gartner. This figure is not
expected to diminish greatly over the
next four years.
Approximately 46.7 million iPads will
ship this year, about four times the number
using Android, Gartner reported.
Sales of this magnitude helped Apple
Stores retain their No. 3 spot on
TWICE’s 2011 Top 100 CE Retailers
Report. Apple boosted sales by 26 percent
to $8.7 billion, and to date there
are 245 stores in the United States and
358 worldwide.
The popularity of the iPad, iPhone
and iPod has helped drive Mac computer
sales to new heights. Gartner credited
Apple with controlling 10.7 percent
of the market at the end of the second
quarter of 2011 for third place in the
U.S market, behind Hewlett-Packard
and Dell.
Apple received a blow when its longtime
retail guru Ron Johnson departed
for a top post at JCPenney. However,
the biggest Apple news of the year
greatly overshadowed that or any product
introduction or new store opening.
On Aug. 24 Apple co-founder and CEO
Steve Jobs resigned.
Jobs, who had a history of health issues
that forced him to step away from
the day-to-day operations several times
over the years, stated in a letter to Apple’s
board of directors and the Apple
community at large that he could no
longer meet his duties as CEO.
This move initially caused a firestorm
on the web as pundits and bloggers
speculated the impact of Jobs leaving
Apple. The company’s reins are now in
the hands of Tim Cook, who had taken
over during Jobs’ previous leaves of absence.
Jobs and Johnson left their posts as
Apple temporarily passed Exxon as the
world’s most valuable company. On
Aug. 10 Apple hit $337.1 billion in market
capitalization.
