As vacancies increase and retail sales throughout the U.S. remain a shadow of the decade’s boom, Apple Inc.’s stores are defying the recession. At Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street, the noon-day line on Aug. 11 snaked out the front door. More than a dozen people waited to buy an iPhone, which runs from $99 to $299, plus at least another $70 a month for a service plan. Every computer, seat and station was occupied by a visitor to midtown Manhattan.
Retail sales in New York City have fallen 8 percent to 10 percent from comparable 2008 levels, according to the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book business survey published July 29.
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