The company extends its network with six new official stores

Dec 27, 2012 07:27 GMT  ·  By

The Redmond-based technology giant Microsoft has recently announced the opening of six new stores supposed to bring its new products, including Windows 8 and the Surface RT, closer to its buyers.

Microsoft opened a total of 51 new full-line and specialty stores in 2012, the company said in a press statement, including the first international stores in Edmonton, Burnaby, Vancouver and Toronto, Canada.

Here are the locations of the six new stores:

• The Shops at La Cantera, San Antonio, Texas • Dadeland Mall, Miami, Fla. • Beachwood Place, Beachwood, Ohio • Westfield San Francisco Centre, San Francisco • City Creek Center, Salt Lake City • St. Louis Galleria, St. Louis

According to some sources close to the matter, Microsoft is also looking into ways to open official stores across the Old Continent, thus trying to copy Apple, the fruit-named company that already operates a large retail network in Europe.

The United Kingdom could be one of the countries to get a Microsoft store in the upcoming months, but Microsoft is yet to comment on the matter.

“We look forward to opening the doors of these stores, and many others, where our direct connection with customers will be built one interaction and one relationship at a time,” the company said in a statement, hinting that more stores would be announced soon.

Microsoft has recently decided to sell the Surface RT, the company’s first tablet in history at third-party retailers across the world, so the device is now available at non-Microsoft stores not only in the United States, but also in the UK and France.

In addition, the software giant pledged to expand this retail network even more in the near future, as part of a last-minute saving plan supposed to boost the disappointing early Surface RT sales.

Microsoft is yet to release official sales figures for the device, but analysts and studies conducted in the United States have indicated that the Surface RT is off to a very weak start.