The first Apple retail stores opened 25 years ago today

Apple’s retail business turns 25 today, marking a quarter century since its first stores opened on May 19, 2001.

Steve Jobs personally guided members of the press through the Tysons Corner store four days before its opening, after Apple announced the retail initiative on May 15. Some 500 visitors queued before dawn on opening day, with the queue growing to more than 1,000 by the time the doors opened at 10am. in combined sales throughout their opening weekend.

The decision to move into physical retail came at a precarious time for Apple. With a market share hovering around 2.8%, the company struggled to get its products into third-party retailers, where Macs were routinely relegated to dusty corners manned by employees with limited product knowledge. Jobs believed that Apple would never lose its “cult” image unless it controlled the entire customer experience up to the point of purchase. As he told Walter Isaacson in his biography: “Unless we found ways to get our message across to the store’s customers, we were screwed.” »

To lead the retail campaign, Jobs recruited Ron Johnson, who had transformed Target’s image with his designer merchandise line. Together, they refined the concept of the store into a secret warehouse prototype, working on every detail, from the single-entry layout to the Genius Bar, which Johnson modeled after the service experience at Ritz-Carlton hotels. Gap CEO Mickey Drexler, who joined Apple’s board in 1999, also played a key role in shaping the retail vision.

Skepticism was widespread at the time. Apple’s sales had fallen 29% the previous year, Gateway had just closed 40 of its own stores, and Channel Marketing analyst David Goldstein had publicly predicted that Apple would “turn the lights out on a very painful and costly mistake” within two years.

In 2003, Apple was making $3 million per store per quarter, with about 60,000 visitors to each site. Apple Retail had $1.2 billion in revenue in 2004, breaking the record for the fastest retail operation to reach the $1 billion mark. The company today operates more than 500 stores in 27 countries, with each location generating approximately $5,500 per square foot per year, among the highest figures in the retail industry.

The original Tysons Corner store moved and reopened in a larger, redesigned space within the same shopping center in May 2023. Apple’s Tysons Corner and Glendale Galleria stores remain open today.