NEW DELHI: In the last couple of years, India has been slowly climbing up the Apple priority tree. Now, we aren’t really the ‘apple’ of its eyes, but things are changing, and unlike before, we aren’t simply a dumping ground. After a record third quarter, Tim Cook spoke about India growth at the earnings call. According to a report, he said, “In India we grew at 93% and this is on top of the Greater China numbers that grew 87% during the quarter against a market of 5%.”
It should be noted that the base growth has improved in India, but the sales numbers of 0.5 million are still pretty small compared to Greater China’s whopping 1.45 million figures, adds the report.
“Apple has been investing heavily in sales and distribution over the past four quarters. India is definitely a focus market and is clearly on their radar. They’ve geared up on the focus (India market) since two years now. Now, it’s a market which has huge opportunity and can’t be ignored,” said Kiran Kumar, research manager at IDC India told the news site.
Apple products are an aspiration in the Indian market, and fall under the luxurious premium category. There is fierce competition in the low- to mid-range segment that is dominated by Android phone makers like Xiaomi, Micromax, Xolo and others. However, as a market, India has a huge potential to grow further.
“India as a market has a lot of potential for smartphones, but it will probably take a couple of years for it to reach this potential. It’s like quarter of a size of China’s smartphone market or maybe even a fifth, so obviously there’s a long way to go,” Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra had told Firstpost in an interview.
Going back to Apple numbers, the tech giant sold more than 47.5 million iPhones during the three months ending in June, or 35 percent more than a year ago. That sent Apple’s profit soaring nearly 38 percent for the quarter, to $10.7 billion. But a lukewarm forecast for the current period, combined with uncertainty over the new Apple Watch, helped drive Apple shares down more than 6 percent in late trading Tuesday night.
