Apple Completely Ignored Its Retail Stores During Its Earnings Call This Week

Apple is known for its prominent retail presence, but the company omitted any mention of its iconic brick-and-mortar chain during its Q3 earnings conference call earlier this week.

During earnings calls, Apple typically provides a brief overview on the status of its stores, including how much it profited from retail sales, the number of stores it opened during the quarter, and the retail chain's average number of visitors throughout the quarter.

Details on Apple's retail revenue were shared in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but weren't emphasized in the conference call as it was in years past, as Apple retail news blog ifo Apple pointed out.

Apple has also omitted the statistic about how many visitors it sees in its stores for the second quarter in a row, ifo Apple also noticed.

It's unclear exactly why Apple decided to leave updates on its retail presence out of the earnings call, but reports have suggested that some significant changes are coming in the near future.

Angela Ahrendts, Apple's new senior vice president of retail, has reportedly outlined a three-part vision for the future of Apple's stores, according to 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman.

Ahrendts wants to focus on expanding Apple's retail presence in China by adding 30 new stores to the country by 2016. She also reportedly wants to figure out how to make mobile payments more intuitive and simple for customers in Apple stores.

On a more vague note, Ahrendts reportedly wants to shake up the entire customer experience in Apple stores, from the way they find products to how they purchase items in the store.