“Apple Inc. is on course to win clearance to open its first retail stores in India, a person with knowledge of the matter said, as Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook seeks growth opportunities in a nation of 1.3 billion people,” Shruti Srivastava, Sunil Jagtiani, and Adi Narayan report for Bloomberg.
“The Indian government plans to push through Apple’s application to set up outlets, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The company is resubmitting the request as it wasn’t in the right format, the person said, without giving a time-frame for final approval,” Srivastava, Jagtiani, and Narayan report. “Apple should qualify as a provider of cutting-edge technology, the person said. That would exempt the maker of iPhones and iPads from a rule forcing foreign businesses that retail a single brand in India to procure 30 percent of a product’s inputs locally. The company makes most of its devices in China.”
“Cook is hunting for fresh sources of growth after Apple last month forecast a sales decline for the first time in more than a decade. India now has the world’s fastest-growing major economy and about 220 million smartphone users,” Srivastava, Jagtiani, and Narayan report. “The challenge is that Indian consumers tend to prefer cheaper devices, leaving Apple with only about 2 percent of the market.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’ll be good for Apple to control the full retail experience in India. Third party reseller can only offer so much. As always, expect Apple to continue selling premium products at premium prices to premium customers, regardless of the country in which they are operating.
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Cook’s focus on India is insanely great – January 27, 2016
Apple seeks to open their first retail stores in India – January 21, 2016
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Welcome to India!
The only people who buy Apple products in India are very rich and they do it to show their status. Apple iPhone 5se would be a joke because Android phones are so good there and you can get them anywhere between 200-300 dollars. iPhone will never sell in India like China but they will make good money selling expensive plus models.
“Apple products in India are for the rich” is a loser’s argument. All over the world Apple products are expensive and there are other cheaper alternatives. People buy Apple products inspite of the price tag because there is a proper ecosystem of apps and accessories to support the purchase. The problem is Apple hasnt paid attention to develop an ecosystem here.
Apple Maps in India are useless, Siri cant pronounce Indian origin words and names, no Dual Sim phone, to name a few. Until Apple sorts these out no opening retail stores isnt going to help.
Apple should avoid India like the plague. The application was not in the correct format and had to be redone, so a typical hurdle / nuisance at the application stage. There will be more bureaucratic hurdles to come that are not needed to face. India’s rich can get their Apple products from elsewhere.