No Surprise: Apple Stores Are Massive Cash Cows

According to self reported data, Apple’s physical retail stores are absolutely crushing it. Their revenue for the previous quarter? A cool $2.58 billion. See if you can count that high, we dare you.

That huge numbers are a 72.8% year over year rise for the quarter. What could cause such a dramatic jump in store revenues? As it turns out, non-Mac sales were up 106.3% due to the iPad drawing in people to the store like mosquitoes to a bug zapper.

For Apple Stores, foot traffic was up 38.7% and Apple saw a shocking 52.9% rise same store sales for the quarter. These are simply stunning numbers. Of course, the iPad is only going to launch, or relaunch, once a year, but this does put more of a face on the reports from Cupertino on the millions of iPads that it has sold thus far.

As Apple’s product line diversifies from computers and heavily into consumer electronics, the company is also succeeding in expanding its sales channels. So far it seems that the icons of cool, the Apple stores across the world, are not only holding the line in a tough economy, but are quickly becoming one of the strongest weapons in Apple’s arsenal.