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is there any way to determine which countries have an online store and which do not?
Checking the official Apple website one by one in each locale of interest, or look here for a map of it.


Basically, most small third world countries don't have it. Russa doesn't have it. India doesn't have it. China has hundreds of them.

2000px-Apple_Stores.svg.png


Country / RegionNumber of stores
United States271
China42
United Kingdom38
Canada29
Australia22
France20
Italy17
Germany15
Spain11
Japan10
Hong Kong6
Switzerland4
Netherlands3
Sweden3
United Arab Emirates3
Singapore3
Brazil2
Turkey2
Macau2
Mexico2
Taiwan2
Thailand2
Belgium1
South Korea1
Austria1
 
Indeed Apple has a long presence in India. In the 90s, Apple used to sponsor golf championships in India. Crazy times.
 
That shows how underdeveloped India is.

For Apple's online store to work, you need good infrastructures across the entire country, such as broadband internet, fast, reliable and cost-effective domestic shipping that covers the entire country. You will also need good channels for online fraud prevention, which is a big problem in India not just domestically. Scammers from India are literally scamming the world.

For the online store to be successful, you need a ready market. The mass population should be at least pretty much all literate, and digitally literate, which India doesn't have. There should be a significant middle and upper class measured in the American purchasing power standard, not PPP because Apple products have globally standard pricing, at least before tax. Apple products will not be cheaper in India than in the US in FX dollars, so the nominal dollar, in this case, equals PPP-adjusted dollar.

Most of the people that meet the above criteria are located in the rich part of India, aka., the affluent half of the big cities, which already have physical retail channels.

For physical Apple Stores to work in India, currently India has none, there must be urban clusters in India that will buy the upper-end of the premium device lineups, such as Mac Pro, iPad Pro, Thunderbolt display (with the stand), AirPods Pro, etc. Products like the entry-level basic iPad, iPhone SE, MacBook Air without retina display, etc. will not generate enough profit for Apple to operate physical Apple Stores, which are expensive to keep.
The later Apple entered India, the more costly it will be. Samsung and the Chinese OEMs already have factories in India up and running for a while. BMW has manufacturing plants in India. Other luxury brands like LV also have stores in India. Luxury brands are building up their brands in these emerging economies for the future. There is only so much growth one can expect from mature markets like the US and Western EU countries. China is also getting stagnant. India is second largest market. It would be foolish to not enter India.

Interesting you point out scammers. Their existence actually necessitate Apple to go in officially in order to maintain the Apple brand.
 
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Basically, most small third world countries don't have it. Russa doesn't have it. India doesn't have it. China has hundreds of them.

Speaking from experience - some countries that do not have a physical store still have the online one - like Malaysia and Poland that have official resellers + online store combo. You can get custom build Macs etc. The Malaysian online store is handled by Apple Souhteast Asia (or something similar) in Singapore / China.

Colombia and Indonesia do not have an online store, so you either buy at a reseller or fly to Mexico or Singapore. Custom builds are much more complicated then.
 
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Speaking from experience - some countries that do not have a physical store still have the online one - like Malaysia and Poland that have official resellers + online store combo. You can get custom build Macs etc. The Malaysian online store is handled by Apple Souhteast Asia (or something similar) in Singapore / China.

Colombia and Indonesia do not have an online store, so you either buy at a reseller or fly to Mexico or Singapore. Custom builds are much more complicated then.
It blows my mind the Ireland and Portugal don't have Apple Stores. Any explanations?
 
Apple’s motives are clear. They are slowly trying to capture Indian market. By next year, I expect Apple to fully make iPhone 2021 in India itself. Exporting to Europe will reduce fuel costs. Apple will have 2-3 countries like Vietnam, Thailand and India making all products once they pull out of China. If they manufacture anything there, it would only be for local masses.
 
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It blows my mind the Ireland and Portugal don't have Apple Stores. Any explanations?

Hard to say, same with Poland, Czechia, Hungary etc - at least one store in each capital city would be nice. Instead they opened a third one in Singapore, which is basically a very big (but very rich) city.
 
Hard to say, same with Poland, Czechia, Hungary etc - at least one store in each capital city would be nice. Instead they opened a third one in Singapore, which is basically a very big (but very rich) city.
Building up in Singapore makes sense. Majority of the purchasers there are tourists. It only became odd due to the pandemic, but if the pandemic didn't happen, it makes total sense to have multiple stores there as the first one in Orchard can be insanely crowded.
 
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Usually yes, but not always. I think iPads (Base and Air) and Macbook Air's are closer to their US pricing after taxes. iPhones and other Macbooks, OTOH are terribly expensive.

Not a single Apple hardware is comparatively priced

India Prices in USD
iPad 8 32gb: $410 (actually the same as iPad 7 currently)
iPad Air 4 64gb: $750
Macbook Air 256gb: $1280
 
You can check prices here:

At current exchange rate $1 = Rs. 73.61

iPhone SE - $577 (US price $399)
iPad Air - $745 (US price $599)
MBA - $1263 (US price $999)

You might want to consider taxes which still won’t bring it closer to the US prices but would be a fair comparison.
 
Super excited for this! The apple only showrooms here can't match buying directly from Apple! Wish they opened actual stores too..
Counting down the day till Sep 23rd, can't wait for the Apple Watch 6 blue to be available here (and the new iPhone 12 announcement); My wallet is ready :p
 
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Indonesia next please. 270 million of people is too huge of a market to not opening the online store there.

Take 3% and you got 8 million people rushing your server to buy.
YES!

But imo Apple (ie. Foxconn/Pegatron/Wistron) need to set up shop here for iPhone assembly to really carry favor from the government. Hopefully soon while we still have an administration that is in favor of and really pushing development. Amazon and Google are already building data centers here. Apple really needs to catch up.
 
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The addressable market in India is several times that of several European countries. The fact the Apple is the last to arrive after every major brand shows Apple’s laziness and inability or unwillingness to navigate the local environment

That shows how underdeveloped India is.

For Apple's online store to work, you need good infrastructures across the entire country, such as broadband internet, fast, reliable and cost-effective domestic shipping that covers the entire country. You will also need good channels for online fraud prevention, which is a big problem in India not just domestically. Scammers from India are literally scamming the world.

For the online store to be successful, you need a ready market. The mass population should be at least pretty much all literate, and digitally literate, which India doesn't have. There should be a significant middle and upper class measured in the American purchasing power standard, not PPP because Apple products have globally standard pricing, at least before tax. Apple products will not be cheaper in India than in the US in FX dollars, so the nominal dollar, in this case, equals PPP-adjusted dollar.

Most of the people that meet the above criteria are located in the rich part of India, aka., the affluent half of the big cities, which already have physical retail channels.

For physical Apple Stores to work in India, currently India has none, there must be urban clusters in India that will buy the upper-end of the premium device lineups, such as Mac Pro, iPad Pro, Thunderbolt display (with the stand), AirPods Pro, etc. Products like the entry-level basic iPad, iPhone SE, MacBook Air without retina display, etc. will not generate enough profit for Apple to operate physical Apple Stores, which are expensive to keep.
 
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Checking the official Apple website one by one in each locale of interest, or look here for a map of it.


Basically, most small third world countries don't have it. Russa doesn't have it. India doesn't have it. China has hundreds of them.

2000px-Apple_Stores.svg.png


Country / RegionNumber of stores
United States271
China42
United Kingdom38
Canada29
Australia22
France20
Italy17
Germany15
Spain11
Japan10
Hong Kong6
Switzerland4
Netherlands3
Sweden3
United Arab Emirates3
Singapore3
Brazil2
Turkey2
Macau2
Mexico2
Taiwan2
Thailand2
Belgium1
South Korea1
Austria1

Those are the physical stores, the OP asked for the online stores, which encompasses more countries such as Portugal (apple.com/pt/shop), Norway (apple.com/no/shop), Ireland (apple.com/ie/shop) and many others. I find it surprising though that they haven't any physical store in Ireland since it's basically where their European HQ are located.
 
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This is a big deal. India is fast developing but honestly it has a long way to go. In the vast rural area of India only about 60% have electricity. They would have been much further ahead, but they made the admirable, and in my opinion, inspiring decision to forgo the usual route of industrial revolution based on carbon fuels and instead invest heavily in renewables. Industrial growth is off the charts, consumer spending is rising at record pace. All good signs.

India is where we're looking to invest as well. I agree that this is big news.
 
The addressable market in India is several times that of several European countries. The fact the Apple is the last to arrive after every major brand shows Apple’s laziness and inability or unwillingness to navigate the local environment

I agree. People in our country have so many misconceptions about other nations. China was seen in similar ways less than a decade ago and today it's about to take over us as the world's largest and wealthiest consumer market. I get the sense that these comments are rooted more in racial and cultural bias than in factual knowledge.

I've been to these places. Yes, there are rural areas with a factory and run down huts. Of course there are poor people there. But you know what, drive down to rural Virginia, Kentucky or upstate Wisconsin. You'll be lucky if you find someone with a full set of teeth. Worse, we're supposed to be the wealthiest country on earth, so yeah...
 
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Colombia and Indonesia do not have an online store, so you either buy at a reseller or fly to Mexico or Singapore. Custom builds are much more complicated then.

I had experience requesting several box BTO of Mac Pros and Mac Minis back then for our office in Indonesia through Singapore Apple Store. Basically it was cumbersome. Thankfully all unit are working good, even after AppleCare expired no single machine had problem.
 
I love the intentional design choices Apple makes. They could have just said, "Apple Store coming to India." Instead, we have a really cool illustration that's full of "hidden" apple products and icons. Really neat!
Yeah! I did spend some time thinking “pipes? smoking pipes? ah damn airpods!”
 
Checking the official Apple website one by one in each locale of interest, or look here for a map of it.


Basically, most small third world countries don't have it. Russa doesn't have it. India doesn't have it. China has hundreds of them.

2000px-Apple_Stores.svg.png


Country / RegionNumber of stores
United States271
China42
United Kingdom38
Canada29
Australia22
France20
Italy17
Germany15
Spain11
Japan10
Hong Kong6
Switzerland4
Netherlands3
Sweden3
United Arab Emirates3
Singapore3
Brazil2
Turkey2
Macau2
Mexico2
Taiwan2
Thailand2
Belgium1
South Korea1
Austria1
Thanks for lost. Still big part of the world for Apple to conquer
 
Starting to ramp up business in a rapidly developing 1.4b population country(5x size of US) is hard to keep ignoring. Wall Street eventually sees the light. Getting very close. It’s not wishful thinking it’s just facts.
a base iphone se is 3-4 months wage for the average in india, number of population doesn't mean jack if mass majority cannot afford it. if what you say is true, this news would've already had some slight bull run on AAPL, but if you look at their stock today its actually down. i hold AAPL so i ofcourse wish you are right, but to dig deeper into the data will tell you otherwise.
 
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