APPLE has poached John Browett, the boss of Dixons Retail, to take charge of its burgeoning network of retail stores.
He will join the US technology giant in April as senior vice president of retail, replacing Ron Johnson, who resigned from Apple last November to join the US department store chain JC Penney as chief executive.
Browett, who has been chief executive of the Currys and PC World owner since 2007, is credited for reviving the ailing retailer’s fortunes and seeing off the threat of Best Buy, the world’s largest electricals retailer, which attempted to break into the UK market.
His departure, which comes just months after the departure of Dixons chief financial officer Nicholas Cadbury, shocked the market yesterday, sending shares diving more than seven per cent to 14.1p.
Peel Hunt analyst John Stevenson said: “We see this as a significant negative for Dixons and provides a clear indication of the long term outlook for the business in our view, which continues to face the structural challenges of online competition and margin pressure.”
Browett will oversee the expansion of Apple’s current network of 300 stores and report directly to chief executive Tim Cook.
Dixons has promoted group operations director Sebastian James to replace him, and has also appointed Katie Bickerstaffe to the new role of chief executive of UK and Ireland.
THE RISE AND RISE OF THE APPLE STORE
Number of stores 361
With 114 in 11 countries other than US
Total Visitors* 1bn
*Total number of visitors to all Apple stores
Retail space 3m
Square-feet of leased floor space
Number of employees 36,000
Full-time equivalent
Largest store Regent street
25,000 square-feet
Busiest store pudong (Shanghai)
Originally Regent Street
Average vistors per week 17,937
Per store, (Q4 2011)
Retail sales $3.6bn
(Q4 2011)
Retail Profits $679m
(Q4 2011)
Retail as a proportion of revenues 12.7%
(Q4 2011)
Retail as a proportion of profit 10.2%
(Q4 2011)
Sales per square-foot annually $4,713
(fiscal 2011)
