By all accounts, it was a great year for Apple's retail arm. Apple started the fiscal year with 273 stores, and finished it with 317, including 84 outside of the United States. Among the new showcase stores opened during the year were ones in Louvre in Paris, on New York’s Upper West Side, and in Beijing and Shanghai, China. Stores also opened in the UK, Germany, Australia, and Canada.

Look for the company to continue to expand internationally during 2011. It plans to open 40 to 50 stores during the coming fiscal year, with half of those slated for outside the U.S. The company also plans to start renovating several of its U.S. stores during 2011.

Apple’s , covering the 2009 holiday season, was Apple’s best quarter ever, with sales of $15.68 billion and a profit of $3.38 billion. Apple forecast $11 billion in sales for the second quarter.

Just two days before the , Steve Jobs was quoted in a company press release as saying, “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”