New filings say that Apple Stores in the UK more than rebounded after their coronavirus closures, with the latest figures beating pre-pandemic earnings.
Apple Brompton Road opened in late June 2022. Credit: Apple
As it was around the world, Apple was consistently among the first UK retailers to close its stores during the pandemic. While its online Apple Store continued, its then 38 UK stores were subjected to protracted closures and at times reopenings.
According to British newspaper The Telegraph, Apple's UK store revenues were $1.83 billion in 2019, but dropped to $1.27 billion in 2020.
The latest figures go up to the end of September 2022, where Apple has reported revenues of $1.96 billion. It's reportedly a record for the company, and The Telegraph ascribes it to post-lockdown demand, and also the iPhone driving 5G sales.
However, the fact that the latest figures go up to only September 2022 means that they do not reflect either the launch of the iPhone 14 range, or the UK's more recent economic problems.
Unusually, Apple made a point of stressing at launch that it was keeping the price of the iPhone 14 range the same as that of the iPhone 13 range. However, that was only true for the US and China.
For the UK, the base iPhone 14 was launched with a price tag equivalent to $80 more than the base iPhone 13. The Telegraph notes that the iPhone 14 Pro costs almost $200 more in the UK than the iPhone 13 Pro did the year before.
It would be likely, then, that the next financial figures will go down from this record high. Except by September 2022, Apple's prestigious Apple Brompton Road store in London had only been open for around two months.
Since then, Apple has also opened the even higher-profile Apple Battersea, also in London.