“Apple plans to go local with a vengeance, setting up small, neighbourhood shops in big cities and tier II markets, in a bid to get closer to potential buyers as it pushes ahead with an India-specific strategy aimed at trying to grab market share from dominant rival Samsung,” Writankar Mukherjee and Sagar Malviya report for The Economic Times. “”
“The shops will be set up by Apple distributors Redington and Ingram Micro besides existing trade partners and follows the revival of the iPhone 4 for sale in India and other emerging markets, which gave buyers who covet the brand the option of a phone that costs much less than latest models,” Mukherjee and Sagar Malviya report. “Apple has also directly approached some trade partners and retailers regarding the setting up of the neighbourhood stores.”
“Apple has informed distributors and trade partners in recent meetings that it is looking to set up exclusive 400-600 sq ft stores in neighbourhoods and some popular high-street locations. They will focus on mobility products such as iPhones and iPads, besides entry-level Mac computers and iPods, said three of Apple’s trade partners aware of the plans ,” Mukherjee and Sagar Malviya report. “Apple wants to set up these smaller stores in areas where people have high disposable incomes, there’s a strong penetration of smartphones and a large student population such as Pune, Vizag, Guwahati, Durgapur and Gangtok.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sarah” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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India government blocks Apple Retail Stores – February 25, 2014
Selling the iPhone 4 is the biggest mistake Apple will make and throws into doubt Cook’s long term strategy as being cheap and nasty.
I can think of a bigger mistake they could make
Except the iPhone 4 isn’t cheap or nasty, it is far better built than literally ANYTHING samsung has to offer (which feel like (and are) cheap plastic pieces of crap.
It’s interesting with 7.1 the iPhone 4 feels far… dare I say… snappier than it did on 7. In addition it is “snappier” (less laggy interface) than 90% of the android phones out there (android take a heavy toll on hardware).
This a great baby steps for Apple entering the Indian market because there are more poverty than middle class in India.
“… because there are more poverty than middle class in India.”
Hence the part in the article that says “Apple wants to set up these smaller stores in areas where people have high disposable incomes”
It’s no different to the strategy that they use when locating Apple Stores in the rest of the world, they’re always in the prime locations. In this case, the small local stores will also be in the prime locations within a country with a very unequal distribution of wealth. Apple is smart enough to realise that there are a lot of people in India who can afford Apple products, so it’s carefully targeting that sector.
How do you measure poverty in India? Do you have any figures or facts or do you just make it up because CNN keeps showing images of a few people in poverty in any news clip from India?
Apple looked at the size of the middle class in India and if they did it right, they will have noticed that it is about the same numerical size as that in the US. Check it out for yourself.
Utter rubbish, don’t compare the middle class of corrupt India with that of the developed world. India has a population of 1 billion people, how come Indians don’t make their own design phones given the middle class is so lucrative. On top of that apple have chosen the out dated iPhone 4 for this 3rd world country, how embarrassing that this affluent middle class in India gets out dated design from a world leading manufacturer. I say let the Indians use android crap, they are made for each other
V,
Tell us, why would selling the iP4 in India be such a big mistake?
iPhone 4S would’ve been a better option everywhere.
Don’t like this idea at all, India is a cheap and restrictive country where bribes needs to be paid to officials, only Samsung can go to such unethical markets, apple is too good for Indians