A study of Apple and Microsoft retail stores on Black Friday shows that nearly 5 times as many items were purchased per hour at the Apple Store. Traffic was up 31%, an improvement likely driven by shoppers wanting to see the new iPad mini.
Gene Munster and his team at Piper Jaffray conducted 8 hours of observations at Apple retail stores in Minneapolis last Friday, also known as the U.S. retail shopping holiday “Black Friday.”
While observing the Apple Store, they found that an average of 17.2 items were purchased per hour. The Microsoft Store tallied just 3.5 items per hour, none of which were Microsoft’s new “iPad killer”, the Surface tablet. All but two of the Microsoft Store purchases observed were games for the popular Xbox 360 gaming console.
Hourly traffic at the Microsoft Store was 47% less than that at Apple’s retail location. The locations are located across from each other in the famous Mall of America in Minneapolis.
Munster noted that the most popular version of the iPad mini, the 16GB model, was in limited supply. Also, he observed that Mac sales did seem to be affected by the new iPad, although that could also be attributed to the anticipation of the launch of the newly redesigned iMacs.
Munster said his team counted sales of 11 iPads per hour at the Apple Store, down from 14.8 last year. Munster felt this was not a cause for concern, as many sales of the device have moved online, and said he believes that total iPad sales, including all models, will be up 62% year-over-year.
