Apple Looks to Distributors to Expand iPhone Sales in India

I am glad most of the commenters in this thread at least have a vague idea about India and the Indian market.

While the percentages may seem low, the numbers speak for themselves. 3-5% of the Indian population would be much bigger than most European countries.

Most of the people, specially in the big cities, can afford between 1-2 cars, a house (owned or rented) and a decent living condition. A large percentage of them are debt free. And this is just the middle class.

The upper middle class, or the relatively well off, routinely take trips all around the world. Have about 2-4 cars in their owned houses, have chauffeurs to drive them around and at least 2 servants in the house. Home theatre systems and big screen TVs, etc are all very well the norm. And these people are willing to pay whatever it takes to get the latest gadget in their hands!
Or the latest designer brand. And that is the reason why almost all of the designer brands recognise India as a huge market and have invested huge amounts of money in the very expensive real estate market to open shops.

Khan Market, in Delhi, is one of the most expensive high streets in the world:
http://articles.economictimes.india...shopping-destination-hong-kong-s-causeway-bay

The potential for a freely available iPhone to be popular is huge! Specially as a lot of people I know have already paid over $2000 for one to be the first to have it in their hands.

India is also all set to be the largest retail market in the world in the coming years.

Honestly, I am not sure what the popularity of the iPhone would be if people in the US were expected to spend $800-900 on it instead of the measly upfront amount they spend right now.

bitcloudrzr said:

33 million, that's the entire population of Canada, which certainly buys a lot of iPhones.

Click to expand...

Oh? You guys get phones, now?

India: post iPhone 5 prices of all phones:

iPhone 4 (8 gb) - 550$
iPhone 4s(16gb)- 780$
iPhone 5 (16gb) - 889$

Samsung Galaxy S3 - 629$
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 -694$
Htc One X (16 gb) - 589$

^^^daa *** is wrong with apple when it comes to pricing in India?? Do they go full retard or something??

Notice the difference between HTC One X and 2 year old iphone 4 (8 GB version)

Price is the main issue. pricing a phone above 40K is crazy.. and we're gonna see the iphone 5 launch around 45-50k.. who the hell wants to pay half a lakh on a phone!! Price it decent like the S3 or the HTC one X, and it will sell a lot!! both the s3 and htc one x launched under 40k. around 37k i believe, which is what many are ready to pay right now.. not above 40k!! Apple wants to remain arrogant with its pricing, let it be. Its just gonna see lesser sales.. no one is gonna buy an iphone 4 or a 4s when the 5 is out already. India wants the latest phones at decent prices.. sell the iphone 5 here at 39900 and it will sell a million!!

Well,regarding India,and it's population,it is true that 70% of the population struggles for basic facilities,poverty is abundant,but the 10% middle class (100 million) and 1% upper class (10 million) provide ample business oppurtunities for companies,and corporations are not interested in that 80% poor population,they see those top 10% or so,and the number are large enough to attract them.Cities like Delhi and Mumbai have some of the largest slums in the world for sure,but because of sheer population,even that 5% of the rich create a substantial market demand.....and yes I have lived in India for 18 years,and am a human geography major,so I guess I kinda have some info-no offence to anyone,my apology if someone felt offended .

make iPhone 5 less than 40k and take my money straight away.....
I bet that the sales will reach sky rocket in India if Apple decreases its prices by 5k($100) on every product...

Apple do not need to do any special favour for Indians who can buy premium products at a decent price levels.

Let Apple sell iPhones in India with the same price that of USA including taxes(@Rs 48 per USD exchange rate unchanged) you can see the difference in your sales figure.

The problem with previous iPhone releases here in India was the price. Even though when the iPhone 3G, 3GS & 4 were released tied to the mobile operators, they didnt subsidise the phone a bit. Also their iPhone specific talk plans were a rip off or day light robbery.

With iPhone 4S Apple started to sell via operators frirst and then later via its authorised resellers, but again the prices were kept very high.

This has prevented the high penetration in Indian market.

If the iPhone was released like in USA at $199 (INR 11,000) tied to an operator, then it would had captured the marked and outsold any other smartphone here.

Sadly that was not the case...and hopefully Apple will rectify this problem by selling atleast the unlocked handsets with prices at par with Global unlocked handsets.

The earnings of most well educated Indians atleast in metros is pretty good and they can easily afford unlocked iPhones even at current sky high prices. i've seen lots of people with iPhone in India although their ratio compared to Android or BlackBerry is low. But with competitive prices from Apple, this will soon change.

I've used every model of iPhone from 2G to 4....skipped the 4S and now waiting to buy the 64 GB iPhone 5 on launch day.

Ramchi said:

Apple do not need to do any special favour for Indians who can buy premium products at a decent price levels.

Let Apple sell iPhones in India with the same price that of USA including taxes(@Rs 48 per USD exchange rate unchanged) you can see the difference in your sales figure.

Click to expand...

The exchange rate is Rs 54/$ and been there for quite some time now.

SWPROX said:

The exchange rate is Rs 54/$ and been there for quite some time now.

Click to expand...

It nose dived to Rs 35-36 at some point during 2009-2010. Ideally it should be around Rs 40-45 range. I have included the markup for correction as well

The lowest the $US ever went to was Rs.39.11 in 2008

source - http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=INR&view=10Y

DevilInDisguise said:

The lowest the $US ever went to was Rs.39.11 in 2008

source - http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=INR&view=10Y

Click to expand...

I remember shopping a lot in 2008 during my USA holiday

Lte

Apart from the chinese vendors, there doesnt seem to be any phone which would work in the 2.3GHz LTE band. iPhone5 would be one more phone to that not-useful-for-LTE list.

Apple should focus more on bringing the prices down in the developing countries rather than spreading their stores. Even if they spread the devices to every inch and corner in the country if the device is priced $600 more than the price in the US and costs over $1000 I am sure people will just skip it.

I am planning to get a MacBook Pro it costs $1199 in the US and for me its $1465. I know Apple has no control over taxes and etc. but they should at least sell their devices to the re sellers at a lower price than they are usually selling so the consumers wouldn't have to pay a huge amount extra.

Prices in Sri Lanka.

-- iPhone sales have always been small in India

The first year the iPhone was available in India, only about 50,000 were sold.

Things have improved a bit since then; now Apple ships about that many to India each quarter, but ~200,000 a year is still nothing in a country with 900 million cell phone users.

(Apple ships more than that to Norway or Belgium or Israel... countries with 1/100 the number of cell users.)

-- For that matter, smartphones sales aren't that big

Total smartphone sales were 2.7 million units during 1Q12.

Of those, Samsung sold 40%, Nokia 26%, RIM 12%, Apple maybe 2%.

If Apple is really going after India (and all the other countries where inexpensive phones rule), Cook must have some plans to make either much less profit, or far cheaper models.

Couldn't resist!

I really couldn't resist posting this after seeing all those people say that India basically is a bunch of people that are not fit for apple. And this sadly(to them) is far from the truth. Apple is actually very valued and it is actually the perfect country to get a huge fan base for Apple. What I'm saying is, if Apple opens it's own retail stores, prices will drop and then Apple can easily gain a lot of iSheep that are just gonna buy anything and everything that they release. I've seen people spending upwards of 3200 USD for a BASELINE Retina MBP! Of course this is because of the c*rrupt govt that Apple isn't able to open it's stores. According to Indian rules, if a company wants to open single brand stores, 30% of all that stuff must be sourced from India which just can't be done. But the problem is the prices & the stupid rules but not the society or the people.