India

Two senior government officials have said that Apple is ‘discussing with the Indian government the possibility of manufacturing its products in the country,’ reports the WSJ. Apple is said to be seeking financial incentives in order to proceed.

Apple has been trying for some time to open retail stores in India, plans which have been stymied by a government requirement to source 30% of products locally in order to be permitted to open single-brand stores. There have long been contradictory reports that Apple may or may not be granted an exemption.

The Indian market holds massive potential for Apple for two simple reasons …

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According to a report from the The Economic Times, Apple is planning to set up a distribution center in India. The move comes as Apple is working to establish a retail presence in the country and has faced challenges due to local regulations.

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Apple still relies on third-party retailers to sell its products in India, and the company is adding a second online retail partner to help ahead of India’s iPhone 7 launch next month. While the iPhone 7 goes on sale in 30 additional countries around the world today, India is set to kick off iPhone 7 sales on October 7.

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Apple has long been working to establish a presence in India, but the country’s strict requirements for retailers and companies have made it a very challenging task for Apple. Whether or not Apple will be legally allowed to open retail locations in contradicted by several reports, but the long-standing roadblock has been that Apple does not have a manufacturing presence in the country.

India has generally required that any company with retail locations manufacture a portion of the goods in the country, though it has been reported in the past that Apple could circumvent that requirement. A new report from The Economic Times, however, says that Apple has approached Foxconn about possibility of making the iPhone in India in the next two to three years.

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The Apple CEO, Mr. Tim Cook calls on the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on May 21, 2016.

Strategy Analytics paints a grim picture for Apple on the Indian Subcontinent. The world’s third-largest smartphone market after China and the US is not taking to the iPhone in meaningful numbers. In fact, sales dropped significantly — 35 percent — in Q2 2016 to just 800,000 iPhones sold vs. 1.2 million in the same quarter a year ago.  Clearly, the launch of the cheapest iPhone ever, the iPhone SE, wasn’t a big winner in India.

Meanwhile, smartphone shipments grew 19 percent annually to reach 31 million units in India during the second quarter of 2016, with over 97 percent of those devices being Android.

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Apple announced back in May that it would be opening an iOS App Design & Development Accelerator in Bengaluru, India – and the Economic Times reports that it has now agreed to lease more than 40,000 square feet of office space to house the facility.

Citing ‘three people familiar with the matter,’ the report says that the center will be spread over two floors at Galleria in North Bengaluru. Bengaluru – formerly called Bangalore – is known as ‘the IT capital of India,’ home to more technology startups than any other part of the country. Over a million people in the city work in the tech sector …

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We’ve been hearing conflicting reports on whether or not Apple will be allowed to open retail stores in India ever since Tim Cook met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last September. A new Bloomberg report suggests that Modi may be about to finally give the go-ahead.

While India is currently a very small market for Apple, Cook has repeatedly described the country as the next China. The huge population and growing middle-class means that India has enormous future potential for Apple, but a law has so far prevented the company from opening official Apple Stores there …

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Opening Apple Stores in India has been something of a challenge for the company. The law normally requires companies to manufacture at least 30% of their products within India before they can open a single-brand store under a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rule, but TNW is reporting that a decision to liberalize the FDI deal will finally provide the go-ahead for Apple Stores.

Apple will likely be allowed to avoid sourcing products locally for eight years – three years as per the new norms and an additional five years if it can prove it deals in ‘state-of-the-art’ and ‘cutting-edge’ technology that’s unavailable in the country.

If confirmed, the ruling will be an important one for Apple, which Tim Cook has described as the next China. An eight-year deal does, however, seem unlikely …

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In India, it’s required that any company wanting to set up a retail location must sell at least 30 percent locally sourced goods, but reports claimed that because of Apple’s “cutting-edge technology,” it would be able to circumvent this requirement. According to a report from Reuters today, however, that is not the case.

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The South China Morning Post reports that iPhone maker Foxconn has replaced more than half of its workforce with robots since the launch of the iPhone 6. The figures were provided by the local government in Kunshan, where the company is based.

“The Foxconn factory has reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots. It has tasted success in reduction of labour costs,” said the department’s head Xu Yulian … 

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As part of his tour throughout India, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this past week to discuss the company’s plans in the country. This isn’t the first time the two have met, but this meeting comes as Foxconn is planning a manufacturing plant in India while Apple plans to open two new establishments, as well as three retail stores.

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In this week’s top stories we break down the latest iPhone 7 leaks, the new iTunes 12.4 release, Tim Cook’s trip to India & much more. Head below for the usual roundup of handy links to all of this week’s most shared stories:

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Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for an extended interview with NDTV while in India this week and in it discusses the latest on Apple Pay negotiations, bringing Apple retail to India, and discussions with carriers and government officials while visiting the country.

While noting several large investments Apple is announcing in India, including the opening of a new development office that will create 4,000 jobs and a new accelerator program for app developers, Cook also confirmed talks with Indian banks for Apple Pay and much more:

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As CEO Tim Cook was meeting with Prime Minister Modi and partying with Bollywood stars, Apple’s VP of environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson was also in India. As reported by Yahoo India, the Apple executive was visiting “solar mamas” and a rural school where students were being taught via iPad lessons.

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In between announcing a new development office that will create 4,000 jobs in India and meeting with local iOS developers, Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted visiting a film set before partying with Bollywood celebrities at an event reportedly hosted by Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan this week.

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In a press release, Apple has announced it is opening a new development office in Hyderabad, India. The team located here will apparently focus on improving Apple Maps, which is deeply integrated across Apple’s hardware and software as dedicated apps and embedded in other services, like Siri. The new center will create up to 4000 new jobs in the local economy. It is currently unclear as to the nature of the workforce, as Apple has preferred to keep its core software engineering team in California with most working solely in Cupertino.

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Photo: Eric Risberg/AP Photo

The Economic Times reports that Tim Cook is meeting with the heads of major carriers in India in order to form ‘strategic partnerships’ as the country accelerates its LTE rollout. The smartphone market in India has so far been constrained by slow data speeds in most parts of the country.

Cook has said the advent of high-speed 4G networks in India will expand the market for iPhones, flagging elsewhere, making it a key market for the company.

Cook is said to be meeting with Bharti Airtel, the largest carrier in the country; Reliance Jio Infocomm, which plans to roll out LTE services nationwide this year; as well as Vodafone and others …

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Tim Cook and Prime Minister Modi at their previous meeting in Silicon Valley

Tim Cook, who is currently in Beijing, is headed on to India tomorrow, reports Reuters. Sources say that he is due to meet with Prime Minister Modi, who he last met in September back in the US (above).

Apple chief executive Tim Cook will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second leg of his Asian tour, two sources familiar with the matter said, as the company seeks to revive sluggish iPhone sales.

One item on the agenda is likely to be India’s reported rejection of Apple’s request to sell used iPhones in the country …

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Bloomberg speculates that India could refuse to grant Apple permission to sell used iPhones in the country citing comments from a telecommunications ministry official today.

The U.S. company’s application has been turned down, the official said, asking to not be identified, citing official policy [while] Apple declined to comment.

Apple had hoped that used iPhone sales would be a good way to get a foothold in a country where its market share is just 2%, and where 80% of phones cost less than $150. Its iPhone Upgrade Program in the United States gave the company a plentiful supply of used phones that it could have sold at much lower prices in India without sacrificing margin, which must have seemed like the perfect plan … 

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A report back in February that Apple would be allowed to open retail stores in India has been corroborated by India’s Economic Times. India normally doesn’t allow single-brand retail stores unless at least 30% of their products are made within the country, but Apple is reportedly set to be granted an exemption on the grounds that its products are ‘cutting-edge technology.’

A government panel has recommended exempting Apple from mandatory local sourcing norms, a move which would pave the way for Apple to open single-brand retail stores in the country. “The committee has found that the company’s products are cutting edge technology and state-of-the-art. It has recommended to exempt them from the local sourcing norms,” sources said.

The exemption is a pretty big deal for Apple …

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A new motion signed into law in India will require all phones, including iPhones, to feature a ‘panic button’ to call emergency services and GPS for location pings from January 1st, 2017. The provisions are being brought in to aid the ‘security of women’, via the Indian Express.

Obviously, GPS has existed in iPhones since the iPhone 3G but it seems that Apple will have to make some software modifications to iOS to comply with the panic button request.

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