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Target and Apple Widen Their Collaboration

Target and Apple widen their collaboration
San Francisco California USA. Sep 25 2021: The Target is Bush St and Sansome St in San Francisco.

Target announced this week that it has deepened its relationship with Apple. The retail chain has more than tripled the number of Apple-in-Target stores to 150 and has offered some Apple-related incentives to members of the Target Circle membership program.

The first Apple at Target location opened in February of 2021, several years after its rival Minnesota-based retail giant, Best Buy, debuted a similar concept.

Target Circle members are eligible for a four-month free trial of Apple Fitness+, as well as access to special offers from others of the Apple Services stable, like  Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple News+ and iCloud+. And those with a Target RedCard can get 5 percent off all Apple purchases and free shipping on orders of $35 or more on target.com and the Target app.

“For years, Target has been a destination for Apple products. Now we are excited to deepen our collaboration with Apple so even more guests can access the exceptional Apple at Target shop-in-shop experience. Through Target Circle, our popular free-to-join loyalty program, we’re also giving our guests the opportunity to try services like Apple Fitness+ for free, and with no purchase required,” Jill Sando, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer of Target, said in the announcement.

“Guests love the branded and immersive retail experiences we’re creating with Apple and other partners including Disney, Ulta Beauty and Levi’s. With this Apple expansion, we’re giving guests even more reasons to choose Target for all their shopping and tech service needs.”

In the second quarter of this year, Target reported a 90 percent drop in quarterly profit from the year before, as it dropped prices in order to sell unwanted inventory. The performance fell well short of analyst expectations, CNBC said. Target typically announces third-quarter earnings in November.

Apple, in its earnings release Thursday, announced its fiscal fourth-quarter results, reporting what it called a September quarter record revenue of $90.1 billion. Total revenue beat analyst expectations, but iPhone and iPad revenue were below what analysts had predicted, although iPhone revenue was up year over year.