From an article over at Bloomberg.com:

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, increased revenue at its stores by 2.5 percent in the first six months of the year to $3 billion as the rest of the retail industry suffered. During the same period, sales at all U.S. retailers fell 9.2 percent compared with the first half of 2008, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

…

Apple’s Fifth Avenue emporium probably has annual sales of more than $350 million, topping any of the chain’s other outlets, said Jeffrey Roseman, executive vice president of real- estate broker Newmark Knight Frank Retail in New York. The location is 10,000 square feet, putting its sales per square foot at a minimum of $35,000, based on Roseman’s estimate.

That’s the equivalent of selling one Mercedes-Benz C300 sedan per square foot. Apple may be the highest grossing retailer ever on Fifth Avenue, said Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail leasing and sales division at Manhattan-based Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Apple doesn’t disclose store-specific revenue, said Amy Bessette, a spokeswoman at the company.

By comparison, the sales floor at Tiffany & Co. sells as much as $18,000 per square foot, Consolo said. Another famous Fifth Avenue jeweler, Harry Winston Diamond Corp., sells between $12,000 and $13,000, she said. When asked to comment on Consolo’s estimate, a spokesman at New York-based Tiffany said the number was too high. Toronto-based Harry Winston doesn’t provide individual-store performance figures, said a company spokesman.

Tiffany’s companywide sales slumped 22 percent in the first quarter. The world’s second-largest luxury-jewelry retailer is scheduled to report second-quarter results on Aug. 28. First- quarter retail revenue for Harry Winston, which plans to report second-quarter results on Sept. 10, fell 30 percent.

Sales at Abercrombie & Fitch Co., the U.S. teen retailer with a store on Fifth Avenue, dropped 23 percent in its first two fiscal quarters of this year. Revenue at Saks Inc., the U.S. luxury department-store chain, declined 22 percent.

New store openings have helped increase Apple’s sales. Ron Johnson, Apple’s retail chief, said in a telephone interview that the company was so “thrilled” with the performance of its three Manhattan operations — the others are in SoHo and the Meatpacking district — it will open a fourth on the Upper West Side later this year.

It is the only Apple store that’s open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Tourists dominate during the day and New Yorkers tend to visit at night, Johnson said.

“The middle of the night is a really interesting time,” said Johnson, who was an executive at Target Corp. before Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs hired him in 2000. “It’s the waiters in the restaurants, it’s the actors on the stage. When they’re off work, they may not want to go off to a club or want to go home.”

At 1:45 a.m. on Aug. 15, there were about 30 people in the store. A display of iPhones doubled as a free, international calling center as shoppers dialed friends in California, Antigua and London. Manhattan resident Marie Perez, 15, and her two teenage friends each positioned themselves in front of an iPod Nano and stood motionless for an hour as they listened to music.

Antonio Delgado, 41, a dump truck operator from Queens, was there to buy an “iTouch,” or what Apple calls an iPod touch, with hopes of using it as a mobile phone. He said he had $250 to spend, and that the money was worth it because of the touch- screen capability.

“I’m not married, so I don’t have to worry about it,” he said of his pending purchase and his late night hours.

Some people even use the Fifth Avenue store as a “pick-up place,” said Consolo, who passes the location every day on her way to work. Tourists used to ask how to find Bloomingdale’s, Saks and Louis Vuitton, she said.

“Now they say Apple store, Apple store,” Consolo said in a telephone interview. “It’s the main event.”

Overstaffed. Free international calls. Free music stations. Free internet. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

$350 million a year in sales.

Give and you shall receive, I guess.

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