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Why India is not a place for Apple?

India is the world's second-largest smartphone market, Apple is one of the world's largest smartphone brands. But Apple is struggling so much to gain the market share in India. So the problem is with India or with Apple? Let's look at it. 

Indian Poverty

It is said that in India an average of 63,000 people is getting out of poverty every day. The per capita GDP in Financial Year 2019-20 stood at Rs. 1,08,000/- (Per capita GDP is a measure of a country's economic output per person, per year). But still, India is said to be the fastest-growing country in the world. Indian market is expected to bounce back strongly in the next FY 2022 by 11.5% said the IMF (International Monetary Fund).

 

Apple's premium

With a value of $2.12 trillion, Apple takes the crown as the most valuable company in the world. It is always said that you can't make a sentence with both 'value for money' and 'Apple'. Apple has built strong brand recognition and has always been premium in every category. Unlike other brands, they built their own OS and SoC (System on Chip). Apple is not only expensive for Indians, but for other countries too. 

Apple started selling its 3G phones in India in 2008. It's 2021 now, still, Apple is struggling with other brands like Samsung, Oneplus, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, etc. There's no doubt in the fact that the Indian market is price sensitive. Price sensitive doesn't mean that only entry-level budget phones sell in India, brands like Oneplus, Samsung are very successful in India even though they focus on the higher-end smartphone segment.

Apple's situation in India 

Source: counterpointreasearch

From this data, it is well clear Apple is nowhere present in the competition of the Indian smartphone market. Apple is said to have about 1% to 3% market share in India. Simply the reason for this is the pricing of Apple products in India. Only those customers who don't mind spending money on the smartphone are most who are buying Apple products in India(the reason is to just show off to others that they're using an Apple product). Not only iPhone but the MacBook(with intel chips),  AirPods, Apple Watch are also more expensive in India. 


There are 3 kinds of persons who can buy a new smartphone

1. First-time smartphone user

2. Switch over (from one brand to another brand)

3. Upgrading the smartphone (of same brand)

In India, all these three types of customers do exist, but the 3rd type of customers is already very few for Apple. Now Apple needs to attract for first 2 types of customers but here begins the headache for Apple. As we said previously, per capita income in India is just Rs. 1 lakh (remember that it is per year), while the latest iPhone 12 series begins at Rs. 69,900 and goes up to Rs 1,59,900 (on the Apple India website), Indian customers can rather buy a Two-wheeler and an Android phone.

Tim Cook, CEO Apple

"For us, we're about making the best product that enriches people's lives. 
And so, we're not about making the cheapest. We want to make a great value, but that's not necessarily the cheapest. And so, what we've seen is, 
there's enough people in every country in the world that we play in that, 
we can have a really good business by selling the best phone" -Tim Cook, Apple CEO

It's very clear from Tim's Cook statement that Apple is not at all interested in adapting to the Indian market. When Samsung understood that they're losing the market share in India due to incoming Chinese brands and their aggressive pricing strategy, Samsung started working on a new series of smartphones like the M series and F series specially for Indian Market. It seems like Apple has no interest in doing similar things in India.
 

Major Problems

1. Price

Apple's prices have always been higher(as a lot of premium is being paid for the brand itself), in addition to that the amount of taxes that Apple needs to clear in India is huge. As Apple is not locally manufactured in India, even though some models are locally manufactured models that people would show less interest to buy, the components for these models are again imported. This is a huge disadvantage for Apple, their prices are higher in India (relatively to other countries) while it should the opposite.

source: Times of India

Apple pricing is so weird that one can even fly to Dubai, get a new iPhone 12, and return to India. The funnier part is still one can save a reasonable amount of money. Check out the video from LaterClips.
 

2. Apple itself

Apple is the kind of brand which thinks 'We know the best, what our customers needed'. The absence of a 3.5 mm headphone jack,  SD card slot, no dual (physical) sim slot, and now there's no charger in the box. For a country like India, an SD card slot, 3.5 mm jack, and charger are very important for many peoples (as the expense increases if they're absent). People are complaining about missing important landmarks in Apple Maps, and Indian customers won't be able to use Apple Pay in the country.

Conclusion

Apple is a very different brand, they're known for their built quality, software support, camera quality, etc. They invest a lot of time and money to improve their design and quality. But  Apple can't make its way to India until they a. Price reasonably b. Start making good budget smartphones c. Manufacturing the newer models locally in India. It will take a subtle amount of time to do these things if Apple decides to adapt to the Indian smartphone market, until then Apple can't gain its market in India.

Have you ever bought Apple products in India? if not let us know in the comments section down below.

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Location: India

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