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Apple plans to grow in India with 100 ‘standalone’ stores, store-in-store locations in small cities

Apple-India-Monthly-Plans

The Economic Times reports that Apple executives in India recently hosted executives from top retailers in the country and laid out plans to open store-in-store locations and 100 standalone stores in smaller Indian markets:

The new marketing vision for India was unveiled on Monday evening at a meeting with 20 CEOs and senior executives of the country’s top multi-brand telecom and electronic retail chains. Apple India’s senior executives spelt out plans to enter the top 50 tier II and III markets in India by selling its phones, tablets and portable music players at their outlets in an exclusive corner or a shop-in-shop, said three people who attended the meeting. They requested anonymity since Apple officials had asked them to keep details of the meeting confidential.

Apple wants to set up 100 exclusive standalone stores under the franchisee model in smaller markets. It’s scouting for franchise partners and has made proposals to some of the multi-brand retail chains, the executives said. Apple has not set any deadline for setting up these stores in smaller towns in India, but is looking to roll them out this fiscal year.

The meeting was held by Apple India execs Maneesh Dhir and Sanjay Kaul, who joined Apple from AOL and BlackBerry around three years ago and, according to the report, have “expanded the team threefold to more than 150 executives, strengthened the Apple exclusive stores network, shortened the gap between the launch of new models overseas and in India and spearheaded the company’s thrust on iPhones.”

While Apple does not yet have official Apple Stores in India, there have been recent signs the company is looking to grow in the country in an attempt to keep up with Samsung and other competitors. Today’s report is unclear if the 100 “standalone” stores would be in addition to store-in-store locations and makes no mention of official Apple Stores coming to the country.

Back in February Apple kicked off increased distribution, marketing and new installment plans in an aggressive iPhone push through its partners, and in March The Economic Times reported that Apple planned on tripling the number of Apple franchise stores in India from 65 to 200 by the end of 2015.

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Comments

  1. Kapil (@kapil833) - 10 years ago

    It’s good.People don’t even consider buying an apple product in small cities in India even if they have the money because companies like Samsung convince people with the number of features and nobody knows the pros of apple’s products.

  2. Sutheesh T - 10 years ago

    The guy in the photo is wearing a Samsung Tshirt…. Free ad for samesung

  3. aeronmichaelangelo - 10 years ago

    Poor BlackBerry, all they get a Xerox’d B&W A4 page taped to the window.

  4. Chinmay Naik - 10 years ago

    stop overpricing apple products in india then people will buy they always add 25% over and above the usa rates

  5. Jim Phong - 10 years ago

    More Tim Cook nonsense wasting precious Apple money…
    In India 99% of he population is poor. They can’t afford buying Apple devices, surely not the iPhone.

    • Jim Phong - 10 years ago

      More Tim Cook nonsense wasting precious Apple money…
      In India 99% of the population is poor. They can’t afford buying Apple devices, surely not the iPhone.

      • Akhil Arora - 10 years ago

        hey, in india people are eager to pay more than the offered price just to get there hands on the new gadget…you need a reality check

      • Nandish (@nandish_a) - 10 years ago

        When did you last visited India dude? India still has poor people, but the number of middle class, upper middle class and rich class out number them. When India affords Samsung galaxy S series, they can afford Apple iPhones too.

    • Have u ever been to India??.. 99% is poor. Were u in amazon jungle for the past decade and only now came out ??.. You idiot. the no of upper middle class in india is rising like anything. Thats why every company is eager about India, next only to China. The disposable income is increasing way above normal for the past decade in India. Thats mainly because of young people who are into IT. Just look for a double bedroom apartment in Mumbai, then u ll realize its way costlier than in Manhattan. Dont ever be in denial. Next to china, India is the rising force. It might be a bit lower now, but will again come back to life in a couple of years. Wait n see.

    • Abhilash Gopal - 10 years ago

      Jim Phong has been Smoking Bong!! and is Hallucinating!

  6. John Matthew - 10 years ago

    It is really cool to have an Apple Store near to your home. In India, majority of people go with cheaper handsets than spending huge money on a single device. Especially, when Chinese mobile vendors start adopting Android more seriously than Samsung and HTC.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.