iPhone is DBA (dead before arrival) in India: they are very price conscious so they'll almost always pick a cheap Android phone. Xiaomi is usually the most popular.
The audience that Apple is targeting in India would rather buy it cheaper from Hong Kong, Dubai or other countries when they go for vacations or ask their family members to get it for them as it is much much cheaper to get it from those countries than from India.
The SE must not be selling very well in India. Ironically, my guess is there would be a solid minority of buyers who would love to still get an SE in the U.S.
I wonder what the sales ‘threshold’ is (in units solds) for Apple to continue offering a certain product for sale.
Indians, like most Asian markets, love big phones, which is why most phones that are sold in India are around the 5.7" screen sizes from Xiaomi, OnePlus, Samsung etc.
It’s more than just the price. They prefer brands from companies based in Asia rather than the United States or the Commonwealth countries.
There is still lingering resentment from the years of British oppression they lived through. In the case of the United States it’s guilt by association because the USA originated from British colonies.
Not sure about other Asian countries but you are very wrong about India in that regards. Apple is an aspirational premium brand and people love to flaunt it there but not the old models rather the latest ones.
There are so many phones in India which are as good or better than iPhone's and they sell at 50% less than the price of Iphone.
Apple really needs to release an SE 2 Full screen as big as the current SE or iPhone 6/7/8 and have internals of the iPhone XS or the upcoming 11. That would be the perfect thing.
THIS!
And also, the services from Apple are pathetic in India. Maps is terrible, Apple Music has very less selection of regional content, iCloud is meaningless in a country where internet connection is unstable, Siri is hopeless (well, it is the same worldwide) in comparison to G-Assistant or Alexa. But hopefully with Apple concentrating in a lot of India-centric features in iOS 13, maybe, just maybe they may be able to market it, especially now with the manufacturing of the latest models, which would in turn help them lower the prices by circumventing the import taxes and duties.
Apple really needs to advertise how the processing prowess of their phones are better than the competitors, in a tech-loving country where people love to get the phones with the latest processors and with more RAM. When Xiaomi can come out with a 250 USD Poco F1 with Snapdragon 845 and 6GB of RAM, I don't understand what's holding Apple back with advertising how their A-series are so much more powerful than the Snaps, Kirins and Exynoses.