Magic happens for Apple in India ahead of 2020

New Delhi: In January this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned several reasons why iPhone sales were not picking up in the emerging markets including in India — customers holding on to their older iPhones a bit longer, weak macro-economic conditions, foreign exchange and battery exchange programmes.

As the year draws to an end, there has been a complete turnaround in Apple’s market share and presence in India, and all the above-mentioned reasons for poor growth have somehow magically disappeared.

The Cupertino-based tech giant is fast selling almost all products — iPhones, Apple Watch, Mac desktops and AirPods Pro — apart from a growing Apple TV+ community in India.

The growth is coming despite the fact that economic downturn has crippled several industries and people haven’t suddenly discovered more money to spend on premium smartphones and other devices.

The reason lies in a better understanding of a market that requires unique customer strategies and mind games, not seen in other, more evolved smartphone territories.

According to industry experts, fuelled by attractive price drops on previous generation iPhone models especially iPhone XR, 7 and 8, Apple has been able to pen a new India growth story.

“Together, these (iPhone XR, 7 and 8) accounted for more than 70 per cent of shipments for Apple in the third quarter (July-September period) of 2019. A larger impact was made by online sales festivals with attractive cash backs on cards, buybacks and affordability schemes like No-cost EMI. Online channel accounted for almost 40 per cent of Apple shipments in 3Q19,” Upasana Joshi, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India, told IANS.

Owing to the price cut, the average selling point (ASP) for Apple stood at $729 (nearly Rs 52,000) in the third quarter, lower than the previous quarters.

The new lineup of iPhone 11/Pro series has further added to the growth momentum, especially the iPhone 11 with ASP less than $850 (approx Rs 61,000) as compared to the higher variant of Pro and Max.

“The opening quarter shipments for the new iPhone 11/Pro series has had a good reception, together accounting for 23 per cent of Apple shipments in 3Q19,” Joshi informed.

Apple topped the premium smartphone segment by garnering a massive 51.3 per cent share in the Rs 35,000 and above price segment in the third quarter. (IANS)

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