Apple cracks India’s smartphone market

“After a slow start, Apple’s iPhone has jumped to India’s second largest smartphone supplier by pushing phones to Mom-and-Pop shops in the world’s fastest growing smartphone market,” Sumnima Udas reports for CNN.

“‘In Q4, Apple has turned out to be the number two player in India. And this means that they have done a significant shift in their positioning,’ said Venu Reddy, research director at IDC, the technology market research firm,” Udas reports. “‘Suddenly, everyone was throwing their Blackberries, Samsungs, Nokias and everyone was kind of changing to an iPhone,’ said customer Akanshya Balram.”

Udas reports, “Apple’s success has been attributed to its ability to adapt to India’s smartphone distribution market, where most electronics are sold through small, family-owned shops. Mobile phones in India are not subsidized by telecom operators, unlike other parts of the world.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sid” for the heads up.]

Related articles:
Apple signals emerging-market rethink with India push – February 25, 2013
Apple’s iPhone sales in India rise four-fold in 3 months – February 8, 2013
Apple launches iTunes Store in Russia, Turkey, India, South Africa and 52 additional countries – December 4, 2012
Apple iPhone 5 coming to India on November 2, App Store adopts rupee pricing – October 26, 2012
Apple counters cheap Android phones in India by relaunching unlocked iPhone 3GS – June 28, 2011
High prices for Apple iPhone 3G in India causes disappointment, outrage – August 25, 2008
Apple faces big challenges in bringing iPhone to India, world’s fastest growing mobile phone market – December 26, 2007

17 Comments

  1. Remember T-Mobile & China Mobile will add an additional 15 to 20 million iPhones shipped per quarter. Lets say 4 million iPhones shipped per month to China Mobile & 2.6 million to T-Mobile!

  2. This has been a trend in the emrging markets for samartphones. The cheaper brands make the first gains and then Apple slowly gains share once the concept becomes popular. Getting into the mom and pop stores is a brilliant move. Also remember that there are plenty of wealthy people in India just like there are in China. The market is good there.

    I am surprised though that India doesn’t have a home grown phone maker that can take advantage of the manufacturing and technology skill sets in India to make smartphones.

  3. Who cares about India or China or any of those big name countries? Apple still has ZERO sales in any of Nauru, Grenada, Seychelles, Tuvalu, Andorra or any number of other countries! Apple can’t get it’s act together! Apple is therefore DOOMED! /s

  4. In less than one year, AAPL will own the market in India. In less than two years Samsung will be giving phones away for free in India and in less than three years, analysts will claim APPLE is going the way of Palm.

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