Research suggests that Mac success is directly related to the growth of Apple stores in a country

The following series of graphics, published by Morgan Stanley, provides a curious insight into how the number of Mac users grows in certain areas based on the increase in Apple stores. In recent years, the number of retail stores in the company has grown significantly, motivating more people to purchase Macs in the United States, Japan and Europe.

This relationship, however, does not necessarily apply to the countries / continents with the greatest number of stores. Proof of this are the USA itself (where 213 of the 285 Apple Retail Stores opened since 2001 are located), where the number of Mac users has practically doubled in the last six years, but has failed to overcome Apple's participation in Europe, which has quintupled with the arrived from the company's stores five years ago.

In fact, Apple has always placed its Retail Stores as the best places in the world to purchase Macs even though it has no desire to open them anywhere. Currently, more than half of the sales on them are made to users who have never purchased a Mac in Your lives.

(via Fortune Brainstorm Tech)