Apple Retail Stores Coming to India?

[Small White Car]

Not surprised given the RINOA backdoor Apple created for the Indian intelligence to spy on us.

Ok, the link YOU supplied goes on to link to another article saying it's likely hackers in Pakistan or China that did it, not the companies themselves.

http://news.yahoo.com/fake-memo-real-code-india-u-hacking-mystery-175519916.html

If you want to spread misinformation, don't give us links disproving yourself.

 

[gnasher729]

Not surprised given the RINOA backdoor Apple created for the Indian intelligence to spy on us.

So you don't trust Apple.

But you do trust a completely unknown person or group with an obvious axe to grind, that when they claim they stole documents from Indian intelligence they are actually telling the truth and not showing forged documents.

In addition, what is claimed doesn't make technical sense. If you want to know what's going on in a phone conversation with an iPhone, Apple is not the company that could tell you. It is the service provider.

Apple can expect that half of the money needed to open a store in India will end up being paid in bribes. I can't see Apple doing that.

I think US laws would make it illegal for Apple to bribe people in India. On the other hand, Apple is a big and respected company. So if you try to ask for bribes, I think they will just go the next level up. And if Apple says "we wanted to open a store, but we couldn't because all these people asked for bribes" that would be so bad for India's reputation, it wouldn't happen.

 

[mobi]

Rupees in hand!

+1 buying power

 

[Gasu E.]

I agree.

A decade ago tech companies tried to outsource their technical support to India and it was a disaster. Cultural and language differences made the support useless. I am surprised that Apple considered it at any time and I hope it is not part of their plan for India.

I disagree. I'm in "tech", and to my knowledge many tech companies (probably most if you weight by revenue) use Indian call centers. I won't speak to my own company, but when I've used other companies' Indian call centers, I've generally been pleased. Maybe I'm a little older than you, but I remember what call centers were like BEFORE most of them moved to India. Typically extremely long wait times, often up to an hour. These days I usually get a live person within 5 minutes or less. Sure they have an accent-- learn to listen better, it's a global world, and if you don't have the skill to talk to someone with a strange accent, you lose. I don't understand the comment about cultural differences as I don't see how that affects call center service.

----------

can't blame them for wanting to protect their own economy.

These restrictions are not protecting their economy, they are protecting vested interests. These rules are anti-growth and are holding the country back from growing faster to pull more people out of poverty.

The current administration is trying to loosen some of the retail restrictions, and they are getting castigated for it politically.

 

[Ugg]

Then it would say "30% of components," right? Why does it say "component value?"

I took that to mean it's exchangeable to other things as long as the money works out. Like, if you sold a $100 item made in China but paid someone in India $30 to do the work of selling it, you're at 30% of the value.

There is absolutely no way that they'll be able to meet that requirement.

If Apple sells $1 million in product, that means they'd have to pump $300,000 back into the Indian economy. It ain't gonna happen.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't sell many low value products from

Indian small industries, village and cottage industries, and artisans and craftsmen

. So, that creates a real problem. Apple could create recycling centers or something like that I suppose but they'd still have a hard time coming up with 30%. If Apple wants in, they will come up with something. Maybe Foxconn will open up a plant in India?

 

[Bubba Satori]

Speaking as an Indian, I'm waiting for the recursive jokes to begin...

Speaking as a cowboy, I'm waiting to shoot down those recursive varmints.

Hope you get an Apple store near you.

 

[ChennaiMacMan]

Not super excited

There are plenty of Apple Authorized Resellers in this part of the world. In my city alone, there are at least 5 of them. And with the Online App Store for Apps, MR and Google for troubleshooting issues, I don't really miss an Apple Store.
But still, welcome Apple!!

 

[sergey19]

BRIC is the place to be. I thought it was rumored last year that Apple would have a Moscow store before year end? Further west in Russia, though, it sounds like people are still doing things like going to Finland to buy Apple stuff. When you consider China (and India) for that matter, the number of large cities in China is huge -- there's probably room for a huge amount of retail expansion outside of Beijing, Shanghai, and other largest cities.

It was rumored that Apple would open a retail store in Moscow (apparently even one of their VPs visited the site, I'm guessing VP of retail) but plans fell through and now it seems like they aren't going to. There have been reports that after seriously looking into it, just realized that it would be a difficult thing to do as corruption is quite a big problem.

 

[hrishidev]

I Don't want to argue with people ignorant about India , don't want to waste my energy .
Just one point , Apples internal administrative and retail softwares are developed in India by Tata Consultancy Services ....

If Apple retails store come to India , all apple fans here will be happy

 

[mkrishnan]

It was rumored that Apple would open a retail store in Moscow (apparently even one of their VPs visited the site, I'm guessing VP of retail) but plans fell through and now it seems like they aren't going to. There have been reports that after seriously looking into it, just realized that it would be a difficult thing to do as corruption is quite a big problem.

Yeah, I think corruption is a big issue in BRIC expansion of businesses from America and western Europe. Hopefully something comes through for Apple to expand into Russia -- I'm sure there are many Apple fans there, who would like to see that.

 

[macnerd93]

a friend of mine just came back from India last summer, he said some locals in this small town were shocked that he had a Nikon D90 and iPhone 4, and the old skool 2006 MacBook I guess, they really don't spend the money on gadgets there.

From what I've seen of India your either super rich or super poor, there doesn't seem to be an in-between

 

[shyam09]

Anyone who has tried to start a foreign owned business in India knows how many barriers there are to set up and operate. Indian officials are many and have their hands out for bribes and payoffs.

Corruption has nothing to do with poverty but is based solely on a moral choice. These choices that are commonly made in India are to the detriment of the entire country and keep them in poverty in my opinion. I have seen it first hand and am anxiously waiting for India to grow up and leave bribery as a way of life behind her.

Apple can expect that half of the money needed to open a store in India will end up being paid in bribes. I can't see Apple doing that.

I don't think India will ever "grow up".. we don't have the strong central government required to do such things. All we have a people who care about their own selfish things. I mean where are people like Bhagat Singh [for those who don't know, he was a huge freedom fighter in India], who care more about the people, and the country rather than his own life. India wasn't in a great shape under Brit. Rule, but after independence, i think we are just falling apart.

We are literally divided based on states, and we don't care about the nation any longer. Our govt fails, people are so damn corrupt, and all they can think about is money money money...
sigh....

But Apple will pay the bribes, it's a company after all, it doesn't run by any moral standards but on profits. I love apple, but it isn't the king of morality either [i have no proof of this, but I am just assuming ]

but what the heck, i could be wrong too

 

[pandamonia]

Sounds like Pandamonia needs some lessons about the World. Or I think you are comfortable in thinking like the frog in the pond that "this is the sea." Pandamonia, there is a big world out there other than USA. Or you may be one of those Americans for whom the IGNORANCE IS A BLISS. I think you have no clue about the exchange rate of US Dollars vs Indian Rupees. BTW, I agree with Avatar74

i live in the UK mate. Which means i know enough about indians. Our country is full of em. Maybe i should of said 99% won't be able to afford the phone. but i expect Apple will still sell loads of em to the wealthy.

 

[Abs_p]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Sounds like Pandamonia needs some lessons about the World. Or I think you are comfortable in thinking like the frog in the pond that "this is the sea." Pandamonia, there is a big world out there other than USA. Or you may be one of those Americans for whom the IGNORANCE IS A BLISS. I think you have no clue about the exchange rate of US Dollars vs Indian Rupees. BTW, I agree with Avatar74

i live in the UK mate. Which means i know enough about indians. Our country is full of em. Maybe i should of said 99% won't be able to afford the phone. but i expect Apple will still sell loads of em to the wealthy.

Phones in India are not sold under contract.. iPhone 4s is about 1k usd . So yeah it's expensive and many many can't afford but same would be in any country if the whole contract based system was non existent.. While according to me apple products are kind of over priced in India and apple stores do exist in India right now ( partnership with reliance industries )but am waiting for the real apple stores to come. As one of the largest market I think it's high time now.

 

[entropys]

I don't think India will ever "grow up".. we don't have the strong central government required to do such things. All we have a people who care about their own selfish things. I mean where are people like Bhagat Singh [for those who don't know, he was a huge freedom fighter in India], who care more about the people, and the country rather than his own life. India wasn't in a great shape under Brit. Rule, but after independence, i think we are just falling apart.

We are literally divided based on states, and we don't care about the nation any longer. Our govt fails, people are so damn corrupt, and all they can think about is money money money...
sigh....

But Apple will pay the bribes, it's a company after all, it doesn't run by any moral standards but on profits. I love apple, but it isn't the king of morality either [i have no proof of this, but I am just assuming ]

but what the heck, i could be wrong too

A central government can't eliminate corruption. That can only happen via cultural change. In fact, I would argue that a strong centralised government, which is by nature further from the people than a federated state government, would make it harder to eliminate what is essentially a moral issue. And moral behaviour can only be changed at the individual level. Sitting around wanting nanny government to solve everyone's problems infantilises the population and ensures it never happens.

Governments govern. People behave.

And one other thing: laws that manipulate markets to allow certain categories of participants to extract economic rent, like local content rules, especially rules like local ownership rules, are the kind of thing that encourages corruption. Better to eliminate such rules, and have strong anti corruption rules that are actually enforced.

 

[antmarobel]

Impressive how Apple doesn't like Brazil!

 

[Cg313]

I don't think India will ever "grow up".. we don't have the strong central government required to do such things. All we have a people who care about their own selfish things. I mean where are people like Bhagat Singh [for those who don't know, he was a huge freedom fighter in India], who care more about the people, and the country rather than his own life. India wasn't in a great shape under Brit. Rule, but after independence, i think we are just falling apart.

We are literally divided based on states, and we don't care about the nation any longer. Our govt fails, people are so damn corrupt, and all they can think about is money money money...
sigh....

But Apple will pay the bribes, it's a company after all, it doesn't run by any moral standards but on profits. I love apple, but it isn't the king of morality either [i have no proof of this, but I am just assuming ]

but what the heck, i could be wrong too

I can't see a piss-ant Indian official demanding a bribe from one of the most powerful companies in the world.

 

[MacCurry]

i live in the UK mate. Which means i know enough about indians. Our country is full of em. Maybe i should of said 99% won't be able to afford the phone. but i expect Apple will still sell loads of em to the wealthy.

Oh, I see you are from Londonistan!

Actually, 5-8% of all phones now being sold in India are smart phones starting anywhere in the Rs. 8,000 range ($160 USD). They are not subsidized. So even very conservatively, that is at least 500,000 smart phones sold every month. Of that, Apple enjoys name cachet like in China and if they are sold subsidized, then sales will be brisk.

 

[Avatar74]

Speaking as a cowboy, I'm waiting to shoot down those recursive varmints.

Hope you get an Apple store near you.

Three, to be exact. I live in Dallas. *badum-ching*

 

[Fartypoo]

three, to be exact. I live in dallas. *badum-ching*

:d

 

[akbarali.ch]

Itunes store

i Guess itunes store should expand and apple should focus more on that.

 

[jmpnop]

The iPhone 4S is already on sale in India since 11/2011. AFAIK 4S prices go as low as around RS45,000 and 3GS around RS20,000.

45k RS is on 2-year contract which is equivalent to $900 (16GB iPhone 4S). Moreover iPhone plans are way expensive than prepaid/postpaid plans (1c/min voice, free 150 txt everyday, $20 for 1.25GB data)

 

[Ramchi]

Anyone who has tried to start a foreign owned business in India knows how many barriers there are to set up and operate. Indian officials are many and have their hands out for bribes and payoffs.

Corruption has nothing to do with poverty but is based solely on a moral choice. These choices that are commonly made in India are to the detriment of the entire country and keep them in poverty in my opinion. I have seen it first hand and am anxiously waiting for India to grow up and leave bribery as a way of life behind her.

Apple can expect that half of the money needed to open a store in India will end up being paid in bribes. I can't see Apple doing that.

A central government can't eliminate corruption. That can only happen via cultural change. In fact, I would argue that a strong centralised government, which is by nature further from the people than a federated state government, would make it harder to eliminate what is essentially a moral issue. And moral behaviour can only be changed at the individual level. Sitting around wanting nanny government to solve everyone's problems infantilises the population and ensures it never happens.

Governments govern. People behave.

And one other thing: laws that manipulate markets to allow certain categories of participants to extract economic rent, like local content rules, especially rules like local ownership rules, are the kind of thing that encourages corruption. Better to eliminate such rules, and have strong anti corruption rules that are actually enforced.

Clearly it is different in India. Independent India inherited lots of mess and remained frozen with outdated British System of administration, legislation, legal and economic framework. Without bribe many foreign institutions such as Union Carbide, Enron and BTM etcwould be struggling to set up organization in India or would not be possible to dump toxic wastes in third world countries.

It is by the design the system is corrupt not by choice of people who have very little say unlike the so called developed nations. Over a period of time such things become part of the DNA due to helplessness. It requires Gandhian effort to stand up against the system which only benefits few and certainly not most of the Indian public.

 

[mkrishnan]

45k RS is on 2-year contract which is equivalent to $900 (16GB iPhone 4S). Moreover iPhone plans are way expensive than prepaid/postpaid plans (1c/min voice, free 150 txt everyday, $20 for 1.25GB data)

Sorry, I didn't mean that the costs were low, just that they were lower than the RS1,000,000 suggested. (which is more like the cost of buying a car than a phone).

 

[sergey19]

Yeah, I think corruption is a big issue in BRIC expansion of businesses from America and western Europe. Hopefully something comes through for Apple to expand into Russia -- I'm sure there are many Apple fans there, who would like to see that.

Oh there are A LOT of fans out here (in Russia) that would love to see Apple open an official store. And the potential market for is absolutely huge. I mean there are some very big fans here.

I remember when the iPad 2 came out on a Friday/Saturday and on Monday I already saw a person with it here in Moscow (his dad had waited in line on launch day in the US and had already come back to Russia).