Starting in April, Mr. Browett, 48, will become Apple’s senior vice president for retail, reporting to Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive. Mr. Browett was hired after a search to replace Ron Johnson, who left Apple last year to become the chief executive of J.C. Penney.
Mr. Johnson will be a tough act for Mr. Browett to follow. Along with Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s late chief executive, Mr. Johnson made Apple’s stores into one of the biggest recent success stories in retailing. Mr. Johnson turned the Apple Store, which first opened in 2001, into fashionable high-tech emporiums, showcasing Apple’s latest gadgetry on uncluttered tables tended by impeccably trained staffs.
Apple now has stores in 11 countries, with a third of its 361 outlets outside of the United States. Apple’s revenue from its retail stores was $6.12 billion in the quarter ended Dec. 31, about 13 percent of the company’s total sales.
One of Mr. Browett’s biggest priorities will be overseeing the international expansion of Apple’s stores. Of the 40 stores the company expects to open in 2012, about three-quarters will be abroad, with China very likely to get more outlets.
The hiring of Mr. Browett puzzled some analysts, in part because Dixons provides the kind of conventional shopping environment that Apple has avoided with its own stores. The retailer, based in Britain, now has about 1,200 outlets and is the second-largest electronics retailer in Europe, after Media Markt of Germany. Like Best Buy in the United States, Dixons sells an array of products, including washing machines and other home appliances.
“Dixons isn’t a retailer you look at as being that innovative,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at the investment bank Piper Jaffray. “People in the U.K. who know those stores don’t feel very good about them.”
Still, Apple has taken executives in the past from unremarkable backgrounds and “made them rock stars,” said Mr. Munster, pointing to Mr. Johnson, who had been an executive at Target when he was hired by Apple, as an example. “Apple obviously has a good sense for picking talent,” he said.
At Dixons, Mr. Browett turned around an unprofitable electronics business with a dismal customer service track record and beat rivals like Best Buy. He became famous for strolling into stores on Saturdays to help sell television sets and to chat with employees.
For busy sales periods, Mr. Browett, who rarely wears a tie and does not have his own office, would ask employees from the head office to help out in stores.
“He knows about all the cables that connect a TV and is approachable, enthusiastic and incredibly good in selling things,” said Nick Bubb, an independent retailing analyst.
Among his many successes, Mr. Browett landed a deal for Dixons to sell Apple’s first iPad several weeks before his British rivals and had Apple employees demonstrate the tablet in Dixons’ stores. A subsequent Dixons advertising campaign featured the Apple logo in the background. Dixons became the largest seller of Apple products in Britain apart from Apple stores.