Filed under: Good news, Rumors, Apple Inc (AAPL), Best Buy (BBY)

The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S., Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY), plans to step up the presence Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has in its stores this year. Best Buy is planning to have twice as many stores displaying Apple’s Macintosh PC products, from the iMac to the MacBook. Now, this isn’t an official statement more than a highly likely plan, according to a UBS analyst who dug up dirt on 2008 planning from company executives.

If this is true, it would come as no surprise. Apple has garnered an ever-increasing share of the PC market as of late, and Best Buy has been pounding on competitor Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) with all its force. Best Buy’s closest Apple-carrying competitor, CompUSA, is in the process of permanently shutting its doors as well.

Apple’s display area in Best Buy stores is very odd, but smack’s of Apple’s marketing arrogance and the power it has to control the look and feel of its entire presence wherever Apple PC products are merchandised. Apple has “stores within a store” that separate the Apple presence completely from other PC products in an age when all PCs are commodity products anyway.

Oops, except for Apple products — which do feature a non-Microsoft operating system, industry-leading design and style and superior marketing compared to any global PC brand. Those facts alone dictate Apple PC products be placed in a league all their own. In Best Buy stores, that league it set to expand rapidly in 2008.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.