Apple Has Encountered 'Little Success' Growing in India Due to High Prices of iPhones

[Ghost31]

It is not just India. In Japan, one of the wealthiest countries, Apple had to lower the prices as well.

So who is wrong the many countries, or Apple trying to sell way overpriced iPhones?

In 2 years Apple raise almost 100% the prices of the iPhones, when price sin technology with time actually become cheaper.


It is NOT android. It is the price!
When you raise the price of iphone 100% in the last 3 years, something is wrong. Especially, when technology actually becomes cheaper.
It is ricidulous that a phone cost the same or more than a laptop.

Tim Cook excuses that are combining cameras, etc, is quite lame for being the CEO of Apple.

Honestly, conceptually, it's not ridiculous that a phone should cost more than a laptop. Because these aren't "phones". These are "mini super computers in our pocket with the most cutting edge tech in consumer electronics". I feel like "phone" has the same connotation of a flip phone or something and you're picturing paying 1k for a flip phone. Big nope

However, I think when you raise prices without huge justifications for it, there's a problem. Case in point: The new iPads that are $200 more for...some reason

 

[Abazigal]

Apple will probably have to just write off India when it comes to smartphones. I don’t think Apple can lower their iPhone pricing to a point where enough people are willing to buy them compared to android alternatives, while maintaining their margins and still preserving their profitability around the world.

India is clearly no China when it comes to spending power and it is starting to become painfully obvious.

 

[MacCurry]

Apple will probably have to just write off India when it comes to smartphones. I don’t think Apple can lower their iPhone pricing to a point where enough people are willing to buy them compared to android alternatives, while maintaining their margins and still preserving their profitability around the world.

India is clearly no China when it comes to spending power and it is starting to become painfully obvious.

Sales of the iPhone in China are declining in 2018. Ignoring India would be to the detriment of Apple and Tim Cook knows so.

There are a lot of incorrect figures going around in this thread. However, what is known is that there is a lot of corruption in India to the point where there are only 70 million people who actually file an income tax return, but it is increasing over 12-15% each year. Most business is still done in cash. In recent years the government of India has taken step to formalize the economy with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and many businesses are pissed off when they didn't have to pay any taxes before. Apple is being hit with at least 18% GST along with import duties for not having manufacturing within country.

 

[JPack]

Sales of the iPhone in China are declining in 2018. Ignoring India would be to the detriment of Apple and Tim Cook knows so.

There are a lot of incorrect figures going around in this thread. However, what is known is that there is a lot of corruption in India to the point where there are only 70 million people who actually file an income tax return, but it is increasing over 12-15% each year. Most business is still done in cash. In recent years the government of India has taken step to formalize the economy with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and many businesses are pissed off when they didn't have to pay any taxes before. Apple is being hit with at least 18% GST along with import duties for not having manufacturing within country.

In 2018, Apple's sales revenue in China grew 16% year over year.

Chinese consumers are buying $1,500 iPhone XS Max. Indian consumers are buying $150 Redmi and Honor phones. Indians simply don't have the buying power for any luxury goods.

 

[Ramchi]

Apple will probably have to just write off India when it comes to smartphones. I don’t think Apple can lower their iPhone pricing to a point where enough people are willing to buy them compared to android alternatives, while maintaining their margins and still preserving their profitability around the world.

India is clearly no China when it comes to spending power and it is starting to become painfully obvious.

India won't lose anything! It is already negligible....
[doublepost=1545288048][/doublepost]

In 2018, Apple's sales revenue in China grew 16% year over year.

Chinese consumers are buying $1,500 iPhone XS Max. Indian consumers are buying $150 Redmi and Honor phones. Indians simply don't have the buying power for any luxury goods.

Again misleading! Sales revenue grew to 16% (duedto higher prices) while sales volume declines ! This is the same story in all markets across the globe!! Nothing to do with a country is poorer or rich! Even Apple acknowledges this by stop reporting sales numbers!!

 

[Mars56]

Sales of the iPhone in China are declining in 2018. Ignoring India would be to the detriment of Apple and Tim Cook knows so.

There are a lot of incorrect figures going around in this thread. However, what is known is that there is a lot of corruption in India to the point where there are only 70 million people who actually file an income tax return, but it is increasing over 12-15% each year. Most business is still done in cash. In recent years the government of India has taken step to formalize the economy with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and many businesses are pissed off when they didn't have to pay any taxes before. Apple is being hit with at least 18% GST along with import duties for not having manufacturing within country.

Apple doesn't need to worry about India as a market. If they don't want to afford it, let it go and move on. The Indian market hasn't been relevant so far and doesn't need to be relevant in the future.

 

[aakshey]

In India’s defence, Apple India’s revenue increased by over 40% in India. The profit increased too. But the unit sales of iPhones declined.

 

[ROGmaster]

You are missing the point.

I will explain.

Actualy you are missing the point and ignoring key facts I've stated.

1)Most Indians are poor af and can't afford a smart phone.

That is correct But India is a developing country and more and more people can afford a smartphone as time goes by. That's why the Indian smartphone market is still growing at an accelerated rate while other smartphone markets decline or stagnate. This is a fact that can't be ignored.

2)But there are a small minority who can afford an iPhone, amongst those who can afford a $1500 phone, majority of those people go for iPhones.

I disagree. Taking in consideration the fact that Apple's smartphone sales in India has declined steeply in 2018, only people that want to spend 1500$ on a phone and have a central subjective motivation will buy an iphone. Why? Because iphones are objectively a very bad deal in India. It's very simple.
And affording to pay a certain amount for a phone and actually being wiling to pay that amount are two different things.
Also the +500$(without an upper limit) smartphone portion of the Indian smartphone market is dominated by Android phones anyway.

3)Till recently, If I am not wrong, iPhones cost ~900-1000 in India, however with the iPhone X, the cost of the phones increased by 50-60% and now they cost $1500-1600 and so they have priced out a lot of people and those people who could afford $1000 phones now buy Samsungs and those who can afford to spend $1500+, still prefer to buy iPhone.

The reason for decline in sale is point number 3.

No it's not. Iphone sales in India have been declining for a while and iphone x is not the one to blame because that's not the only phone apple sales there. The problem is even older phones like the 6s, 7 or 8 are a very bad deal in India. And these phones look ancient even next to the latest mid-range Android phones that sell between 180-350$ in India.
Iphone's sale have been declining in India because Apple is uncompetitive from top to bottom.
Samsung mid-range line of smartphones is also uncompetitive so their sales in India also declined massively while manufacturers like Huawei, Xioami, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo have been steadily increasing their market share in India. These things are very obvious and easy to see.
I would say that most of those that can and are willing to spend 1500$ on a phone are buying a Samsung flagships simply because they are a much much better deal than iphones in India. I know very well how consumers in developing markets think, the price is the most important objective motivator.

 

[MacCurry]

Apple doesn't need to worry about India as a market. If they don't want to afford it, let it go and move on. The Indian market hasn't been relevant so far and doesn't need to be relevant in the future.

On the contrary. It will be a rude awaking for AAPL in a few years to ignore it. Tim Cook knows this.

 

[jlwarlow]

I stopped buying iPhones because they're too expensive. I can afford one, but I won't justify the cost. There's a difference.

I'm in the UK where it's common to pay a monthly fee for mobile phones and the phone cost is built into the contract. I see people spend £50 - £80 per month for 2 years for the latest phone as well as pay an up-front charge of a few hundred, it's mad! I have better things to spend money on (family breaks, nice meals out with family). I pay nothing up front and around £30pm. At the moment that got me an iPhone SE 64Gb, which has the 6S internalls. It's a fast phone with lots of features. Give it a few years and the XR will be in that range. I refuse to pay a premium for the latest iPhone when there isn't a huge difference between the latest and a few generations previous version.

 

[racerhomie]

On the contrary. It will be a rude awaking for AAPL in a few years to ignore it. Tim Cook knows this.

The iPhone has already been the most profitable product in history.Plus ,it’s a matured business.Apple will do just fine.

 

[Anandc]

There are lot of things involved.

1) India is a developing country and is 6th wealthiest country in the world yet it has 60% of poor people.

2) India is also home to 20,730 multimillionaires, the seventh largest in the world. India has 119 billionaires, the third-highest after the US and China.

3) According to the New World Wealth report, India was the best performing wealth market globally in 2017 as its total wealth rose 25% from $6,584 billion in 2016 to $8,230 billion in 2017.

4) The richest 10% of Indians own 77.4% of the country’s wealth, says Credit Suisse in their 2018 Global Wealth Report. The bottom 60%, the majority of the population own 4.7%. The richest 1% own 51.5%.

While I am not trying to defend my country saying it's wealthy but considering the population, India is a very good market for any company in the world. It's so good that top 5 companies having highest smartphone market share in India are 1 (Samsung) Korean and 4 (Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo & Huawei) Chinese companies.

Even 5% out of 40% buy iPhone, it's a game on for Apple. But things aren't good for Apple in India. People just hate Apple in India.

1) Dual Sim - Nobody likes the concept of eSim as only 2 service providers support eSim. Android smartphones are having dual sim from last 5-6 years now. It's not a big deal in India and people use it 2 SIM cards, one for work and one as a personal. It just works that way.

2) iOS Split-Screen limitations - Android smartphones can do split-screen which helps many in business.

3) Fast Charger - USD1500 doesn't even have a fast charger is a big deal breaker in India because even a USD150 smartphone has a fast charger and it does its job well.

4) Battery Life - iPhone X & XS have a very ****** battery life compared to Android smartphones. iPhones X/XS have around 2700 mAh while most of the Android flagships today have easily more than 3500 - 4000 mAh battery. iPhone XS Max has 3179 mAh.

5) Camera - Android smartphones are now on par with iPhone camera. An Android USD500 smartphone camera is now as good as iPhone camera. One example is OnePlus 6T.

6) Apple Pay - While Apple Pay is not in India, Samsung Pay & Google Pay have been in India for a while now. Again Apple lacks with latest features that a smartphones have, at least in India.

7) Maps - Even today there's no turn by turn navigation while Google Maps support all their features in India not only just navigation.

8) Siri/News App - Siri doesn't support Restaurant Reservations & Movie Showtimes. There's no Apple News app in India.

But these are very little things that Apple can't do in India. The biggest problem what Apple is facing is Chinese Android smartphones can do almost everything what an iPhone can do at USD500. That's more than half the cost of iPhone.

Currently the most loved smartphone by Indians is OnePlus 6T.

Now let's take a look at what OnePlus 6T can do - https://www.oneplus.in/6t/specs

Basic parameters
Dimensions
157.5 x 74.8 x 8.2 mm

Weight
6.5 ounces (185 g)

Material
Glass

Colors
Mirror Black / Midnight Black / Thunder Purple

Operating System
OxygenOS based on Android™ Pie

CPU
Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845 (Octa-core, 10nm, up to 2.8 GHz), within AIE

GPU
Adreno 630

Vibration
Haptic vibration motor

RAM
6 GB / 8 GB / 10 GB LPDDR4X

Storage
128 GB / 256 GB UFS 2.1 2-LANE

Sensors
In-display Fingerprint Sensor, Hall, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity, RGB Ambient Light Sensor, Electronic Compass, Sensor Core

Ports
USB 2.0, Type-C, Support standard USB
Type-C Earphone, Dual Nano SIM Slot

Battery
3700 mAh (non-removable) Fast Charging (5V 4A)

Buttons
Gestures and on-screen navigation support Alert Slider

Audio
Bottom-facing speaker
Noise cancellation support
Dirac HD Sound®
Dirac Power Sound®

Unlock Options
In-display Fingerprint Sensor
Face Unlock

Connectivity
LTE/LTE-A
DL 5CA/256QAM, UL CA/64QAM, 4x4 MIMO
Supports up to DL CAT16/ UL CAT13 (1Gbps/150 Mbps) depending on carrier support

Bands
FDD LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/18/ 19/20/25/26/28/29/66
TDD LTE: Band 34/38/39/40/41
TD-SCDMA: Band 34/39
UMTS(WCDMA): Band 1/2/4/5/8/9/19
CDMA: BC0/BC1
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Check carrier compatibility

Wi-Fi
2x2 MIMO, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G

Bluetooth
Bluetooth 5.0, support aptX and aptX HD

NFC
NFC enabled

Positioning
GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo

Display
6.41 inches (The corners of the screen are within a standard rectangle. Measured diagonally, the screen size is 6.41 inches in the full rectangle and 6.24 inches accounting for the rounded corners)

Resolution
2340 x 1080 pixels 402 ppi

Aspect Ratio
19.5:9

Type
Optic AMOLED (Support sRGB, DCI-P3)

Cover Glass
2.5D Corning® Gorilla® Glass 6

Features
Adaptive Mode
Reading Mode
Night Mode
Lift Up Display

Camera
Rear Camera - Main
Sensor: Sony IMX 519
Megapixels: 16
Pixel Size: 1.22 µm
OIS: Yes
EIS: Yes
Autofocus: PDAF
Aperture: f/1.7

Rear Camera - Secondary
Sensor: Sony IMX 376K
Megapixels: 20
Pixel Size: 1.0 µm
Autofocus: PDAF
Aperture: f/1.7

Flash
Dual LED Flash

Video
4K resolution video at 30/60 fps
1080P resolution video at 30/60 fps
720P resolution video at 30 fps

Super Slow Motion
1080p video at 240 fps
720p video at 480 fps

Features
AI Scene Detection, Portrait Mode, Pro Mode, Night Mode, Panorama, Time-Lapse, HDR, HQ, Studio Lighting, RAW Image

Front Camera
Front Camera
Sensor: Sony IMX 371
Megapixels: 16
Pixel Size: 1.0 µm
EIS: Yes
Autofocus: Fixed Focus
Aperture: f/2.0

Video
1080P resolution video at 30 fps
720P resolution video at 30 fps

Features
Portrait Mode, HDR, Screen Flash, Studio Lighting, Smile Capture, Face Retouching

Multimedia
Audio Supported Formats
MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WAV, FLAC, APE, OGG, MID, M4A, IMY
Recording: WAV, AAC, AMR

Video Supported Formats
Playback: MKV, MOV, MP4, H.265(HEVC), AVI, WMV, TS, 3GP, FLV, WEBM
Recording: MP4

Image Supported Formats
Playback: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF
Output: JPEG, PNG

In the box
1x OnePlus 6T
1x Screen Protector (pre-applied)
1x Case
1x OnePlus Fast Charge Type-C Cable
1x OnePlus Fast Charge Power Adapter
1x SIM Tray Ejector
1x Welcome Letter
1x Quick Start Guide / Poster
1x Safety Information
1x Type-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter

Indians don't see the value of spending USD1500 compared to what USD500 can do. It can almost do everything. Just it doesn't have the true Face ID like iPhone and no OLED screen. That's it. Nobody cares.

BUT the story doesn't end here. iPhone is loved by many too yet they don't want to buy because it's expensive. Majority of wealthy Indians don't buy iPhones from India. They either buy from US, Canada, Hong Kong, Dubai etc. Where the price is much less compared to India. If you meet any wealthy Indian, they will be carrying an iPhone but 90% of them buy from abroad.

It's a different market. It's flooded with Chinese Android OEMs and they want to compete with iPhone at low cost. Something which is yet to happen in Europe & US but it's slowly coming up. OnePlus have now entered the US Market and I believe at the pace where Apple is heading, it does look like a big downfall for them in US too. The sales are already slowing everywhere in the world.

----

I love Apple's secured iOS & build quality of iPhone and that's the reason I've paid the over priced iPhone XS Max which I bought from US. I live in Mumbai, India.

EDIT:

I forgot to tell the best story.

Apple India profit zooms 140% to Rs 896 crore in FY18
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...rs-896-crore-in-fy18/articleshow/66448728.cms

Yes, Apple is making money in India just like they are making money everywhere else. They are simply losing the marketshare and sales just like every other country in the world.

 

[sane.voice]

Both the wife's and mine S9+ hasnt froze or had a glitch yet and
Def no reboots.

I guess yours is Snapdragon 845 which is better. International S9 isn't as good with samsung's inhouse processor.

 

[Mars56]

On the contrary. It will be a rude awaking for AAPL in a few years to ignore it. Tim Cook knows this.

Not really. That market has and will be relatively irrelevant on the global scale and there's no need for Apple to cater towards it by lowering the prices beyond a reasonable point.

 

[sane.voice]

There are a few simple reasons why Apple isn't big in India compared to US.
Why US loves Apple?
1. World class service. Walk into near by apple store for instant resolution.
2. iMessage
3. Ecosystem. Macs, iPhones, iPads, Watches everything work so well together.
4. Pricing. Apple phones are very expensive, but 200$ more than Google/Samsung phones isn't so over the top.

Why Apple fails in India?
1. No apple stores. So no extra points for service excelente. And service is prohibitively expensive (labor is cheap in India, so repairs are cheap for other brands).
2. No one uses iMessage, Whatsapp rules.
3. Ecosystem doesn't matter. Macs are minuscule. Less so watches & iPads.
4. Oneplus is $500 (most popular phone). S9 for around $650 during sale. Apple Xr costs $1000 (let's not even compare Xs). And most of the sales are for phones less than $300.
5. There are many internationally mobile iPhone loving users who buy from US/Singapore/Dubai where it is much cheaper.

 

[I7guy]

There are lot of things involved.

1) India is a developing country and is 6th wealthiest country in the world yet it has 60% of poor people.

2) India is also home to 20,730 multimillionaires, the seventh largest in the world. India has 119 billionaires, the third-highest after the US and China.

3) According to the New World Wealth report, India was the best performing wealth market globally in 2017 as its total wealth rose 25% from $6,584 billion in 2016 to $8,230 billion in 2017.

4) The richest 10% of Indians own 77.4% of the country’s wealth, says Credit Suisse in their 2018 Global Wealth Report. The bottom 60%, the majority of the population own 4.7%. The richest 1% own 51.5%.

While I am not trying to defend my country saying it's wealthy but considering the population, India is a very good market for any company in the world. It's so good that top 5 companies having highest smartphone market share in India are 1 (Samsung) Korean and 4 (Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo & Huawei) Chinese companies.

Even 5% out of 40% buy iPhone, it's a game on for Apple. But things aren't good for Apple in India. People just hate Apple in India.

1) Dual Sim - Nobody likes the concept of eSim as only 2 service providers support eSim. Android smartphones are having dual sim from last 5-6 years now. It's not a big deal in India and people use it 2 SIM cards, one for work and one as a personal. It just works that way.

2) iOS Split-Screen limitations - Android smartphones can do split-screen which helps many in business.

3) Fast Charger - USD1500 doesn't even have a fast charger is a big deal breaker in India because even a USD150 smartphone has a fast charger and it does its job well.

4) Battery Life - iPhone X & XS have a very ****** battery life compared to Android smartphones. iPhones X/XS have around 2700 mAh while most of the Android flagships today have easily more than 3500 - 4000 mAh battery. iPhone XS Max has 3179 mAh.

5) Camera - Android smartphones are now on par with iPhone camera. An Android USD500 smartphone camera is now as good as iPhone camera. One example is OnePlus 6T.

6) Apple Pay - While Apple Pay is not in India, Samsung Pay & Google Pay have been in India for a while now. Again Apple lacks with latest features that a smartphones have, at least in India.

7) Maps - Even today there's no turn by turn navigation while Google Maps support all their features in India not only just navigation.

8) Siri/News App - Siri doesn't support Restaurant Reservations & Movie Showtimes. There's no Apple News app in India.

But these are very little things that Apple can't do in India. The biggest problem what Apple is facing is Chinese Android smartphones can do almost everything what an iPhone can do at USD500. That's more than half the cost of iPhone.

Currently the most loved smartphone by Indians is OnePlus 6T.

Now let's take a look at what OnePlus 6T can do - https://www.oneplus.in/6t/specs

Basic parameters
Dimensions
157.5 x 74.8 x 8.2 mm

Weight
6.5 ounces (185 g)

Material
Glass

Colors
Mirror Black / Midnight Black / Thunder Purple

Operating System
OxygenOS based on Android™ Pie

CPU
Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845 (Octa-core, 10nm, up to 2.8 GHz), within AIE

GPU
Adreno 630

Vibration
Haptic vibration motor

RAM
6 GB / 8 GB / 10 GB LPDDR4X

Storage
128 GB / 256 GB UFS 2.1 2-LANE

Sensors
In-display Fingerprint Sensor, Hall, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity, RGB Ambient Light Sensor, Electronic Compass, Sensor Core

Ports
USB 2.0, Type-C, Support standard USB
Type-C Earphone, Dual Nano SIM Slot

Battery
3700 mAh (non-removable) Fast Charging (5V 4A)

Buttons
Gestures and on-screen navigation support Alert Slider

Audio
Bottom-facing speaker
Noise cancellation support
Dirac HD Sound®
Dirac Power Sound®

Unlock Options
In-display Fingerprint Sensor
Face Unlock

Connectivity
LTE/LTE-A
DL 5CA/256QAM, UL CA/64QAM, 4x4 MIMO
Supports up to DL CAT16/ UL CAT13 (1Gbps/150 Mbps) depending on carrier support

Bands
FDD LTE: Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/18/ 19/20/25/26/28/29/66
TDD LTE: Band 34/38/39/40/41
TD-SCDMA: Band 34/39
UMTS(WCDMA): Band 1/2/4/5/8/9/19
CDMA: BC0/BC1
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Check carrier compatibility

Wi-Fi
2x2 MIMO, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G

Bluetooth
Bluetooth 5.0, support aptX and aptX HD

NFC
NFC enabled

Positioning
GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo

Display
6.41 inches (The corners of the screen are within a standard rectangle. Measured diagonally, the screen size is 6.41 inches in the full rectangle and 6.24 inches accounting for the rounded corners)

Resolution
2340 x 1080 pixels 402 ppi

Aspect Ratio
19.5:9

Type
Optic AMOLED (Support sRGB, DCI-P3)

Cover Glass
2.5D Corning® Gorilla® Glass 6

Features
Adaptive Mode
Reading Mode
Night Mode
Lift Up Display

Camera
Rear Camera - Main
Sensor: Sony IMX 519
Megapixels: 16
Pixel Size: 1.22 µm
OIS: Yes
EIS: Yes
Autofocus: PDAF
Aperture: f/1.7

Rear Camera - Secondary
Sensor: Sony IMX 376K
Megapixels: 20
Pixel Size: 1.0 µm
Autofocus: PDAF
Aperture: f/1.7

Flash
Dual LED Flash

Video
4K resolution video at 30/60 fps
1080P resolution video at 30/60 fps
720P resolution video at 30 fps

Super Slow Motion
1080p video at 240 fps
720p video at 480 fps

Features
AI Scene Detection, Portrait Mode, Pro Mode, Night Mode, Panorama, Time-Lapse, HDR, HQ, Studio Lighting, RAW Image

Front Camera
Front Camera
Sensor: Sony IMX 371
Megapixels: 16
Pixel Size: 1.0 µm
EIS: Yes
Autofocus: Fixed Focus
Aperture: f/2.0

Video
1080P resolution video at 30 fps
720P resolution video at 30 fps

Features
Portrait Mode, HDR, Screen Flash, Studio Lighting, Smile Capture, Face Retouching

Multimedia
Audio Supported Formats
MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WAV, FLAC, APE, OGG, MID, M4A, IMY
Recording: WAV, AAC, AMR

Video Supported Formats
Playback: MKV, MOV, MP4, H.265(HEVC), AVI, WMV, TS, 3GP, FLV, WEBM
Recording: MP4

Image Supported Formats
Playback: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF
Output: JPEG, PNG

In the box
1x OnePlus 6T
1x Screen Protector (pre-applied)
1x Case
1x OnePlus Fast Charge Type-C Cable
1x OnePlus Fast Charge Power Adapter
1x SIM Tray Ejector
1x Welcome Letter
1x Quick Start Guide / Poster
1x Safety Information
1x Type-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter

Indians don't see the value of spending USD1500 compared to what USD500 can do. It can almost do everything. Just it doesn't have the true Face ID like iPhone and no OLED screen. That's it. Nobody cares.

BUT the story doesn't end here. iPhone is loved by many too yet they don't want to buy because it's expensive. Majority of wealthy Indians don't buy iPhones from India. They either buy from US, Canada, Hong Kong, Dubai etc. Where the price is much less compared to India. If you meet any wealthy Indian, they will be carrying an iPhone but 90% of them buy from abroad.

It's a different market. It's flooded with Chinese Android OEMs and they want to compete with iPhone at low cost. Something which is yet to happen in Europe & US but it's slowly coming up. OnePlus have now entered the US Market and I believe at the pace where Apple is heading, it does look like a big downfall for them in US too. The sales are already slowing everywhere in the world.

----

I love Apple's secured iOS & build quality of iPhone and that's the reason I've paid the over priced iPhone XS Max which I bought from US. I live in Mumbai, India.

EDIT:

I forgot to tell the best story.

Apple India profit zooms 140% to Rs 896 crore in FY18
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...rs-896-crore-in-fy18/articleshow/66448728.cms

Yes, Apple is making money in India just like they are making money everywhere else. They are simply losing the marketshare and sales just like every other country in the world.

Samsung should be afraid of Oneplus. As far as market share, IMO, it matters to a point since apple revenue operates on hardware sales and services whereby other vendors revenues are based on thin margins.

 

[Macbookprodude]

True story.



This is something only an Indian would say.



There are fewer than a million families in India (maybe far fewer in fact) who can afford to buy smartphones worth USD 1000 for every member of their family and then upgrade each year. And you can't expect all of them to actually spend USD 1000 per year per person in the family. Of those who do, Apple has >90% market share already.

A recent report cited Apple India's market share in > $600 smartphones at 72%. So they're selling as many pieces as they can at their current price point. Black market or black money or not, anybody is genuinely well off and wants to buy an iPhone, does buy it most of the time. However, their market share even in the luxury segment is going down as people don't want to buy phones from last year or SE or even XR!

Yes, purchasing power is far higher than illustrated in this thread with hundred's of thousands of families actually being millionaire households in reality. And even taking regular Europe trips and buying expensive stuff. And that isn't reflected in official numbers. But even the reality is far worse than what most Indians are trying to portray in this thread.

No matter what the price, Apple can't really increase their India sales to global numbers. Not even if they halve their prices. And certainly not in the next 10 years.

They shouldn't be chasing marketshare in India. However, manufacturing locally will allow them to decrease the street prices by 20-25% (with a slightly lower margin). And that is all they need to do for India.

Indians are unlikely to buy India specific phones either. But if an iPhone that costs USD 1000 in USA is available for INR 70000 (approx USD 950) in India, that's all that is needed to maybe increase their unit sales by 3-5x and allow it to continue to grow at 20-40% year on year growth.

But nothing else will help. Even if an Indian does own an iPhone, few own any other Apple device. They aren't bothered about the ecosystem or services. Slightly better customer service with Indian manufacturing coupled with slightly reduced margins would be enough to decrease street prices by 20-25% and that is enough to up their unit sales by 3-5x within 12 months!

But that's it. Don't expect anything more regardless of the price point.

Same here in Ukraine.. most of us are starving and on streets thanks to the war and our president. I am leader of my own party, "Liberation" and I am running for president of Ukraine.

 

[Anandc]

There are a few simple reasons why Apple isn't big in India compared to US.
Why US loves Apple?
1. World class service. Walk into near by apple store for instant resolution.
2. iMessage
3. Ecosystem. Macs, iPhones, iPads, Watches everything work so well together.
4. Pricing. Apple phones are very expensive, but 200$ more than Google/Samsung phones isn't so over the top.

Why Apple fails in India?
1. No apple stores. So no extra points for service excelente. And service is prohibitively expensive (labor is cheap in India, so repairs are cheap for other brands).
2. No one uses iMessage, Whatsapp rules.
3. Ecosystem doesn't matter. Macs are minuscule. Less so watches & iPads.
4. Oneplus is $500 (most popular phone). S9 for around $650 during sale. Apple Xr costs $1000 (let's not even compare Xs). And most of the sales are for phones less than $300.
5. There are many internationally mobile iPhone loving users who buy from US/Singapore/Dubai where it is much cheaper.

Exactly. Forget if a country is poor or rich. It just doesn't make sense to buy a USD1500 smartphone when there are USD500 smartphones which can do 95% of the job done.

If you ask me, it's a ****** deal. I have never bought an iPhone from India and I am using iPhone from last 4 years now. I recently purchased MacBook Pro from Japan. iPhone XS Max from USA. Apple Watch I had bought from USA and this time buying Series 4 from Europe. AirPods I bought from Berlin, Germany. I don't buy Apple products from India because they are **** expensive. There's lot of duty imposed on Apple products from the government.

Now lot of people complaint about imposing duties by the Indian govt. But you have to remember, India is a growing economy country. If they don't give jobs to Indians, there will be no increase in income of lower middle class and poor people. When there is a demand of a particular product, govt has to intervene and make the best out of it for the people. But also not screw up the market. It is only asking to make 30% of local manufacturing and not 100% which is clearly achievable and it has been done with all the foreign companies that are there in India.

Trump is trying to do the same but just because it works for India doesn't mean it should work for US. US has a very different class system. Labour is not cheap in US and it will never be unless they poor people like in India. Trump wants to give Americans job but the kind of job he wants to give cannot be given as Americans don't fall in poor category of class system. Also, Americans are not qualified for American jobs. The kind of qualification which requires are coming all from Indians, Chinese and rest of Asia as H1B visa.

Read this article - There are 7 million unemployed and 6.2 million job openings. What’s the problem?

So it's not about the Govt or the Indians. Apple needs to get its act together or else sooner or later they will even lose US market which is its best and loyal market in the world. The low cast Android smartphones are coming to US and the story is going to be the same. Remember how Blackberry was so famous over iPhone at one point in US? well that story is not far enough where Android smartphones will take over iPhone again!

 

[Anandc]

Top Mobile Phones in India 2018

https://www.bgr.in/gadgets/mobile-phones/top

Look at their features and the price. It will answer a lot of questions out here

 

[I7guy]

...So it's not about the Govt or the Indians. Apple needs to get its act together or else sooner or later they will even lose US market which is its best and loyal market in the world. The low cast Android smartphones are coming to US and the story is going to be the same. Remember how Blackberry was so famous over iPhone at one point in US? well that story is not far enough where Android smartphones will take over iPhone again!

Blackberry’s downfall wasn’t price. Apple is a highly branded product and people have Ben predicting the downfall after Cook took over, even as the company was heading toward $1T.

 

[wdfly]

of course they aren't having success because of the high prices, this is the same reason i'm holding on to my iphone for one more year, 1400 bucks is just way to damn high for a $700 phone.

 

[himanshumodi]

If it's so difficult to do business in India why does it affect only Apple? It looks like all other smartphone manufacturers are doing just fine.

India does have regulations that make it a whole lot harder to set up Foreign owned retail shops. That said, it's not absence of Apple owned retail stores that is the reason why Apple is lagging so badly, because there are enough Apple "authorised" shops around. It is the pricing that gets nonsensical, because the government does put a hefty import fee for stuff that is imported from outside. Exchange rate for USD to INR is about 70. For top end iPhones it becomes almost 98 or 100. (that is, iphone Xs at 999 USD would cost 985000 INR instead of 70000 INR at normal exchange rate). Now, at 70000 INR, the phone is still very expensive, but it puts them in the same ball park (although still higher) as galaxy note 9.

Now coming to the question of affordability. The top 20%, income-wise, in India have about 160,000 INR as their annual disposable income... basically money which could go towards an iphone. But they aren't about to spend more than half of their annual disposable income on a phone. Even if you have to consider the top 5%, at 100,000 INR, iphone is still too expensive. For myself, I am comfortably in the top 5%, but I make do with iPhone 6s. Maybe I will buy the iPhone Xs, in year 2020. OnePlus has really found a pricing sweetspot at about 550 USD. I will probably buy iPhones in this range. Perhaps Apple should keep marketing older versions of iPhones in this price range.

Or perhaps, Apple should really re-baseline their phone prices.

 

[I7guy]

of course they aren't having success because of the high prices, this is the same reason i'm holding on to my iphone for one more year, 1400 bucks is just way to damn high for a $700 phone.

To you the value of the phone may be $700, but I bought the max. Thought it was worth every darn cent.

 

[aakshey]

India does have regulations that make it a whole lot harder to set up Foreign owned retail shops. That said, it's not absence of Apple owned retail stores that is the reason why Apple is lagging so badly, because there are enough Apple "authorised" shops around. It is the pricing that gets nonsensical, because the government does put a hefty import fee for stuff that is imported from outside. Exchange rate for USD to INR is about 70. For top end iPhones it becomes almost 98 or 100. (that is, iphone Xs at 999 USD would cost 985000 INR instead of 70000 INR at normal exchange rate). Now, at 70000 INR, the phone is still very expensive, but it puts them in the same ball park (although still higher) as galaxy note 9.

Now coming to the question of affordability. The top 20%, income-wise, in India have about 160,000 INR as their annual disposable income... basically money which could go towards an iphone. But they aren't about to spend more than half of their annual disposable income on a phone. Even if you have to consider the top 5%, at 100,000 INR, iphone is still too expensive. For myself, I am comfortably in the top 5%, but I make do with iPhone 6s. Maybe I will buy the iPhone Xs, in year 2020. OnePlus has really found a pricing sweetspot at about 550 USD. I will probably buy iPhones in this range. Perhaps Apple should keep marketing older versions of iPhones in this price range.

Or perhaps, Apple should really re-baseline their phone prices.

You don’t realise you’re making the same point.

That at current prices Apple isn’t meant for Indians.

Whether Apple wants to accommodate Indians at lower price points is their prerogative. Nobody’s opinion matters here. And there is no reason for them to treat Indians as unique from the rest of the world. If they want to, they can and they will. They haven’t cared enough so far. Chances are they don’t care enough.

They are free to sell at xyz prices. If Indians can afford it, they will buy. Else Apple isn’t really obligated to offer a lower price point. If they do, fantastic. But it’s not like it’s their duty.

 

[Anandc]

You don’t realise you’re making the same point.

That at current prices Apple isn’t meant for Indians.

Whether Apple wants to accommodate Indians at lower price points is their prerogative. Nobody’s opinion matters here. And there is no reason for them to treat Indians as unique from the rest of the world. If they want to, they can and they will. They haven’t cared enough so far. Chances are they don’t care enough.

They are free to sell at xyz prices. If Indians can afford it, they will buy. Else Apple isn’t really obligated to offer a lower price point. If they do, fantastic. But it’s not like it’s their duty.

Nobody is asking them to lower the price.

Every market is different and you can't treat US market like Indian market and vice versa. In India at USD500 you get 99% of the features what iPhone has and doing it's best job so Indians can't be bothered to pay extra which is USD1000 more unless someone is hooked on to iOS.

It's not about the price or Indians can't afford it. Every market is different and Indian market is different too. iPhones in India had a good sale in the past with the growing numbers and it was Apple who wants to capture the market not me. So if you think there is an option of buy if you can afford or just leave it attitude doesn't work in business. As I said, every market is different.