“Last night we learned that one of the ways that Apple wants to beat online price slashers is to have an Apple presence in India via their own line of Apple Stores,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple. “While Apple works with a number of large distributors in India today, they’re asking the Indian Government to relax their rules that are currently blocking them from opening their own branded stores as they have around the globe.”
“According to a new Indian report published by the Business Standard in New Delhi, Apple has asked the Indian government ‘to relax the local sourcing clause in its policy on foreign direct investment (FDI) in single-brand retail,’ Purcher reports. “Though government officials seem to have ruled this out for now, the proposal has not yet been closed.”
Purcher reports, “At present, Apple works with 45 Apple Premium Resellers in India that are run under the franchisee model with partners. Currently, Apple consumers in India face difficulties in after-sales service. As a result of this, the company’s market share remains a low two-three per cent.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Without the Apple Stores Apple customers will never get the full Apple satisfied experience. Short sighted of the Indian government. They are obviously protecting someone’s business interests while not figuring in the consumer service factor.
Come on India … Get with the rest if the developing World!!!!
Let Apple Stores open, build, hire and pay local taxes in
India 🙂
Do it 🙂
Apple is wasting its time in India. Hardly anything gets done there without greasing a hundred palms.
Look for other markets.
Easily said but when this will be one of the major world markets not so sensible in reality. China was like this (still is to a point) but over time it has relaxed and the same will happen in India. brazil and other emerging economies all have their own form of protectionism but then when a foreign company tries to patent the word basmati I suppose one can argue that their touchiness isn’t totally without foundation.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Drink wine, eat pasta, and hump like a rabbit?
No Bucksheesh, no store. India is very protectionist and the same rules apply to Walmart and others but the government bribes have to be paid. Corruption is still rampant.
a government that protects its workforce, how refreshing.
But…but… It’s the worlds largest democrazy 👳👳😋😋
They struggle with corruption just like the US a hundred years ago.
Yes some people have short memories, talk about pot and kettle. Fact is most of the world still operates in a climate of corruption and though we don’t like to admit it most major companies around the globe especially multi nationals aren’t so far behind with their morals when they want to be.
So India is 100 years behind the US, at least the US made progress, how about India, is it moving foreward?
Yes. There is some evidence.
Once Apple stops refusing to grease palms, all will be well in India…
I truly hope Apple never gives in to bribery. The world will be a better place for it.
You think that they don’t operate on the edges of bribery, all companies do to a lesser or greater degree once they work on the World stage its just done in such away that its burnished into pure gold. That said I do think that Apple is a lot cleaner than most and hope it stays that way.
FYI, if an American company pays bribes in ANY country, it’s a felony offense here in the USA, and the people responsible for making the decision to pay those bribes – or to let the bribes continue – can be charged here in the USA. While this may be an unrealistic viewpoint for the USA to take vis-a-vis American business making inroads into a corrupt country such as India, it also protects the Indians from having rich Americans simply buy up all of the opportunity in their country. If they want iPhones bad enough – and there’s every indication that they DON’T – they’re going to have to clean up their act.
I wonder if Chicago counts?
i love indian food. i thought it made you smart. not smart enough, i guess. every state’s economy is like a private singularity. must wear the right suit and shoes to enter and learn the local gravity. i have no idea what i just said. i still like indian food, though.
I enjoy you unregulated.
i wanna add my little pict ..little avatar ..must .find out how
best not, to preserve the mystery
seriously. i’m female. crazy. i laugh a lot. maybe, too much. i work on a mac. i love steve jobs. i love osx and ios. i have an enormous respect for the company attention to vision. i’m 5’8. bedroom eye. oops, sorry, eyes. love indian food. wanna space travel. have an enormous disrespect for bill gates, ballmer and company, eric schmidt and ship of rats, shamwow and their constant copycats. what mystery. oh, almost forgot, i like mdn.
Indian food is too strong for my stomach.
How!
ugh, you gottem wrong injuns..dot not feather.
Not surprised here, anyway I don’t like apple products being sold in wretched India, the people and government are unhygienic and corrupt, this is a cheap skate market for Samsung. Indians are not worth it for apple and I wish apple would stay away
visit residential Detroit.
I saw a tv documentary on Detroit, it’s an empty decaying former auto industrial vastland
From the way you write, you have no idea of what India is like. Visit and learn before making judgements. If you were to judge the US by visiting only the poor areas in the south, you might conclude that they too are not worthy.
Yes people seem to forget that it has a middle class bigger than most countries its just a small percentage compared to the overall population. As such the potential is obscured by the perception.
Sorry, I have to agree with Snoop dogg completely.. I’m an Indian lived 20 yrs there visited more places.. And I can confirm… it cannot be more wretched than one can imagine.
Population explosion can have severe and crippling effects on all walks of life (poverty to sickness, corruption to misery…).
Sorry, this isn’t the right forum – happy to chat offline at lengths… So yeah Apple is better off doing business elsewhere… the profits it may reap is not worth the efforts/bribes it may have to invest in.
Thank you Dave, your honest and correct opinion is very admirable, one can feel the frustration decent Indians like you and many others like you feel, it’s just that the deliberate lies, misleads and excuses of the incompetences that I have a beef with. I have said bad things about India and continue to do so given the climate but decent honest people like you are exempt from my harsh criticism, and I personally apologise to you (not the liars) if I insulted or upset you with my harsh comments regarding India
Dumb and xenophobic.
The Indian work ethic is closer to ‘can do anything’ than plain protectionism. Simply put, if it could be done by an Indian, then the state will ensure that Indian workers get the first try. Chaotic it may be, but there is no an item or service that is ‘not’ available somewhere in all large Indian cities.
On my way to Everest base camp last year, I was recommended a phone repair business in Mumbai. All I wanted were two spare battery juice packs but if I had not been insistent and careful, the proprietor would have had my phone in pieces right in front of me and changed the internal battery…and anything else if I wished. He had a box full of every imaginable spare and bits from iPhones. It’s this sort of unregulated service that Apple seeks to change. Current Apple warranties in India are worthless in the face of these ‘normal’ service channels.
This can do Indian work ethic do not extend to modernising their creaky shabby infrastructure, their hygiene problems like lack of toilets and fresh water, the govt owned (why??) state airline air India which is $800 million loss per year and many other never ending problems. This nation of 1 billion useless people have to buy junk diesel subs and aircraft carriers from Russia and then these junk blow up. Why can’t a nation of 1 billion not make their own ships, subs and aircrafts ?
I can see its useless to reason with someone so self righteous who judges all others from the comfort of their distant armchair, intent on gross oversimplification of the problems the world’s largest democracy faces moving from the 19th century to the 21st in one generation. You seem to expect that India can and should have already, accomplished everything it took the industrialised western nations 200 years to achieve, overnight.
Go and see the problems they face before shooting your mouth off with worthless uninformed insults.
Which by the way, have bugger all to do with the article or what Apple is seeking to do.
Apple does not want to pay under the table to get their business done…
India corrupt? Heck, the US is rife with corruption – they just call it lobbying.
No it’s not the same – Don’t compare US to India (It’s not even close to apples & oranges)… I lived in both the countries – equal no. of years and learnt 8 languages (quite common in India)…. Patriotism aside, I do agree with many comments above, Corruption in India is at enormous levels. Bribery gets you past anything.
Thank you, you have spoken the truth and that’s very admirable, I see a lot of misleading glossing over and lame excuses, when credit is deserved it’s should be given, unfortunately India has a long way to go
Are you Paki by any chance? Your English is pretty atrocious and you seem to be bursting at the seams to just lash into India for some reason.