India may be a small market for Apple right now, but the latest Kantar data shows why the company is placing such an emphasis on the country. While worldwide smartphone growth is just 3%, smartphone penetration in India grew by 16% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017.
Purchase intention also shows great prospects for Apple …
Apple has been working with the local government in India for quite a while to bring iPhone manufacturing local and initiate direct hardware sales. Now a new report claims Apple will start selling the iPhone directly in India later this year, but only certain models and only online.
Google Play Music’s streaming music service has launched in India, undercutting Apple Music’s dramatically discounted subscription in the country, as both companies play the long game.
Phil Schiller has announced the official opening of Apple’s iOS App Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru, India. The center is designed to provide free guidance, inspiration and one-on-one app reviews for local developers.
https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/847719929373577217
The company first promised the center back in May of last year, the company explaining then why it had chosen the location …
The WSJ reports that while the Indian government has rejected most of Apple’s demands for concessions, the company will go ahead with iPhone manufacturing in the country – and that production will begin within 4-6 weeks …
India’s Economic Times reports that Apple will begin assembling iPhones in India whether or not the government agrees to the incentives it has requested. The report also supports a recent report that the location of the first plant will be in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Apple will kick off its India manufacturing plans by initially assembling 3-400,000 units of its iPhone SE model at the Karnataka plant being set up by contract manufacturer Wistron, as the maker of the iconic iPhones looks to take a deeper bite of a key market amid slowing global smartphone growth […]
A person in the contract manufacturing industry said Wistron is ready to start assembling the phones. “The duty concessions are not connected to the plant,” the person added.
Apple is said to be keen to press ahead with the plan without delay for two reasons …
Apple has been working with India over the past several months on plans to make iPhones in the country, and now it appears a location for manufacturing has been decided: Bengaluru. Formerly called Bangalore, Bengaluru is known as the ‘IT capital of India’ and serves as the home of Apple’s 40,000 square foot iOS app development accelerator office space.
If you were in any doubt why Apple was going to so much trouble to deepen its foothold in India, new figures from Counterpoint Research provide the answer. While the global smartphone market grew only 3% last year, smartphone shipments in India grew by 18%.
The growing middle class in the country also meant that, for the first time, there were no Indian brands in the top five as consumers start to spend more on their handsets. There was also good news for Apple …
A proposal for Apple to manufacture iPhones in India in return for permission to open retail stores in the country is ‘almost a done deal’ according to a government official. His comment to the WSJ follows a meeting today between a team of Apple execs led by VP Priya Balasubramaniam and senior Indian government officials …
As Apple gears up to begin manufacturing iPhones in India as part of a deal to open retail stores in the country, it’s being reported that its main assembler – Foxconn – will not be the lead supplier. Instead, a company with existing smartphone manufacturing facilities in the country, Wistron, is said to have been selected by Apple as its primary supplier in India.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard iPhone-related rumors about Wistron …
Just a day after a pair of reports shed more light on Apple’s progress in starting a manufacturing presence in India, a new report from Reuters offers a few new details. The report claims that while some Indian officials are eager to have Apple in the country, others aren’t convinced at this point.
The most interesting tidbit, however, is that Apple executives will be meeting with Indian government officials next week to discuss plans…
It appears that the Indian government may have found a creative way to agree to Apple’s request for financial incentives to manufacture iPhones within the country – without being seen to give special treatment to one particular company. Apple had asked for a number of concessions, including a 15-year import duty on iPhone components, manufacturing equipment and consumables.
Earlier reports had described conflicts between different government departments with differing objectives. The IT and industry ministries wanted to agree to Apple’s terms, as it would be a big win to sign up the world’s largest company to its Made In India program, while the finance ministry was reluctant to lose the import duty revenue.
Two reports today suggest that the government may have found a creative way out of the impasse …
Apple has long been rumored to be setting up a manufacturing presence in India, with a report most recently outlining some of the concessions Apple was seeking from the Indian government. Now, a new report from the Times of India claims that Apple will start manufacturing the iPhone in India in April of 2017, while the company has also posted a handful of job listings in the country.
Indian government officials are expected to meet early next week to consider the incentives Apple has requested in return for manufacturing some of its products within the country, reports the WSJ.
Apple has long been working with the Indian government to set up retail locations in the country, a task that’s rather challenging due to stringent regulation in the country. Now, The Economic Times reports that one concession Apple is fighting for in India is related labeling laws so it doesn’t have to print product info on devices.
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.