Good catch on The Atlantic: basing on the numbers provided by Apple at its Q4 earnings call, Apple’s retail stores worldwide got almost 4 times the visitors of, say, Disney World in 2009.
On Apple’s earnings call, you probably didn’t catch that Apple set a new retail foot traffic record last quarter, what with all the iPad supply fears and Steve Jobs ranting. But they did: more than 74.5 million people went to one of the 317 Apple stores across the world.
Only a small percentage of them actually bought anything, but that’s the point. Apple has managed to transform *hanging out in their stores* into entertainment.
The cultural shift Apple started is here to stay, and it’s going to be one hell of an effort for any competitor to catch up, or get even close. [via Brooks Review]