Target stores to pick up Apple TV
Big-box retailer Target is poised to become the next third-party retailer to market Apple Inc.'s new Apple TV device at its brick-and-mortar retail stores, AppleInsider has learned. — The bullseye-themed shop will join Best Buy, which agreed to cary …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple put its $300 Apple TV streaming box on shelves in late March 2007, and immediately gave Best Buy a two-week head start — an exclusive across all 822 U.S. stores ahead of any other non-Apple retailer. That window was always going to expire, and AppleInsider now reports, unconfirmed by either company, that Target is the retailer positioned to pick the device up next.
If the report holds, it marks the second big-box chain after Best Buy to carry Apple TV, extending the hardware beyond Apple's own retail footprint within weeks of launch — an unusually fast widening for a first-generation living-room product.
First-order effects
- Target would become the second third-party chain stocking Apple TV, giving shoppers a bullseye-branded alternative to Best Buy and Apple's own stores for the $300 box.
- Best Buy's exclusive early-availability advantage effectively ends once a second national retailer carries the device, eroding the differentiation it paid for in March.
Second-order effects
- Rival consumer-electronics chains face pressure to stock Apple TV or cede the streaming-box category on their shelves to two competitors, while Apple gains negotiating leverage over future retail partners.
- Broader shelf presence puts Apple TV in front of mainstream buyers who never visit an Apple Store, raising unit volume against cable and satellite set-top boxes in the same aisle.
Third-order effects
- If exclusive launch windows keep giving way to multi-chain distribution this fast, big-box retailers — not just Apple's own stores — become the gatekeepers deciding which living-room devices reach mass-market buyers.
The trend: Consumer-electronics launches are shifting from single-retailer exclusives to rapid multi-chain big-box distribution as hardware makers chase living-room scale.