Apple Unveils New “Mini” Retail Store Design

CUPERTINO, California—October 14, 2004—Apple® today unveiled its new "mini" retail store, a stunning all-new design featuring stainless steel walls and seamless white floors and ceilings. The mini store is half the size of Apple’s smallest store to date, which will allow it to be placed in a variety of new locations to introduce Apple’s innovative products to even more customers. Apple will open its first six mini stores this Saturday at 10 a.m. in Palo Alto, CA; San Jose, CA; Santa Rosa, CA; Tukwila, WA; Bridgewater, NJ; and Rockaway, NJ.

“Our mini store is a big experience that fits in a small space,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail. “The mini store’s small size will allow us to place stores in a variety of interesting new locations, while retaining innovations like the Genius Bar that have made Apple’s retail stores such a hit.”

During the first three years of Apple’s retail strategy, Apple has successfully located 84 retail stores in the United States and today over half of the US population lives within 15 minutes of an Apple retail store. The mini store is designed to precisely locate additional stores closer to customers to make it even more convenient to purchase products and get help.

The new Apple mini stores feature:

Since the opening of the first Apple retail store in May 2001, Apple retail stores have attracted almost 50 million visitors, hosted thousands of customer events and free classes including the popular “Getting Started” class and brought back the concept of customer service with innovations like the Genius Bar. Apple retail stores generated revenues of almost $1.2 billion in the company’s recently completed fiscal year.

In addition to opening six mini Apple retail stores, Apple is also opening a retail store this Saturday in Newark, DE. A complete list of Apple's 93 retail locations can be found at www.apple.com/retail.