To Gain Foothold in India, Apple Plans To Open Stores, Offer Deals All Year Around, and Fix Services: Report (bloomberg.com) 87
Apple has long struggled to gain market share in India, the world's second largest smartphone market. But now, it apparently plans to change that. Before we get into it, here is some disclaimer: Rumors of Apple's intentions to improve its presence in India are nearly as old as Apple's existence. From Bloomberg: Instead of officially lowering its prices, Apple is in talks with retailers and banks to offer holiday deals all year round, according to people familiar with the plans. Those people say Apple is also asking some individual stores to more than quadruple sales targets, to 40 or 50 iPhones a week, and plans to cut off retailers that consistently fail to hit the mark. Retail sales staff will be trained to teach customers how to use their devices, and Apple intends to overhaul in-store branding and product displays. Executives would conduct daily conference calls with stores to gauge progress.
Apple hopes to start opening stores in India next year and eventually set up three in New Delhi, Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore), and Mumbai, according to the people familiar with the company's plans. The government has long required foreign companies opening shops to manufacture 30 percent of their products locally, but it said in January that businesses can reduce that requirement by sourcing more Indian goods for their global operations. Apple now builds some of its India-aimed iPhone SE and 6s models in Bengaluru; it's unclear whether the company plans to take advantage of the revised policy or try to hit the 30 percent mark. The report adds that Apple has India in its mind as it revamps many of its services.
Apple hopes to start opening stores in India next year and eventually set up three in New Delhi, Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore), and Mumbai, according to the people familiar with the company's plans. The government has long required foreign companies opening shops to manufacture 30 percent of their products locally, but it said in January that businesses can reduce that requirement by sourcing more Indian goods for their global operations. Apple now builds some of its India-aimed iPhone SE and 6s models in Bengaluru; it's unclear whether the company plans to take advantage of the revised policy or try to hit the 30 percent mark. The report adds that Apple has India in its mind as it revamps many of its services.
That's a hard sell (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya know, India is one of those places where people need the stuff they buy first and foremost to accomplish something, not as a fashion statement. It's kinda very "western" to have money to squander on "ohh, shiny!".
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Speaking of the west, I wonder how they will prevent people buying those phones cheap and exporting them?
Re:That's a hard sell (Score:4, Informative)
Same way other companies do it. With region locking, warranty voiding and bribing governments to put tariffs on private imports but not their own.
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That would be something new for Apple then. As it is if you buy an iPhone in say China it comes with the same software as one bought in Europe and one bought in the US. You can change the language to English, get all the software updates etc. when using it outside China. App Store uses geolocation to restrict your selection of apps, changes when you physically move the phone somewhere else.
I think even the 4G bands it supports are the same world wide.
This does have the advantage that if your phone has an is
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I usually write Lëtzebuerg. Ok, not necessarily when the rest of the text is in English. ;)
This aside, you're right. Wanting to show off wealth is mostly common (in Europe) with people who actually have none. The proverbial ghetto car is the BMW "3er series", usually running on leasing because, well, buying is beyond reach. Same with cellphones.
But with the latter it's changing. Mostly because there is no "more" in that area. You can of course buy a cell phone made from 24karat gold with diamonds, but
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You will also notice that this is a thing of the past, and that these buildings to show off wealth are a relic from times when aristocracy tried to outdo each other in a show of wealth and extravaganza.
Maybe the fact that many countries wiped those aristocrats off the map, along with a culture of modesty, rooted in protestant religions that tried to demonstrate a contrast to the opulence and show of wealth and splendor of the Roman Catholic Church, especially in northern Europe, led to a culture where showi
Every country has their showoffs (Score:2)
According to the Americans here in Germany, whose "vlogs" I follow, this is only an American thing, and in most of Europe, people are far less materialistic.
The particular manner in which materialism manifests varies from country to country but if you need evidence that Europeans are materialistic one merely has to look at places like Versailles. They have literal freaking palaces and you're going to argue that they don't care about showing off wealth? How many of the major fashion brands are European brands? Paris and Milan are two of the major fashion centers in the world. There are plenty of people in every country on Earth who are materialistic and want
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I'm not convinced.
I know a few Indian people who've purchased Audis when only going to be here a few years.
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Maybe because they retain a high resale value compared to other cars?
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So an Audi has such great resale value and reliability that the cost per a year of owning one for two years is better than something like a three year old Accord?
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Also, don't be deceived: there are also a lot of really rich people in India. It's not all poverty.
Indian's are materialistic too (Score:3)
Ya know, India is one of those places where people need the stuff they buy first and foremost to accomplish something, not as a fashion statement.
While I've never spent time in India I have spent a lot of time working with people from India and in my experience they are no more or less fashion conscious than any other group of people. I've met plenty of Indians who are as vain as any westerners. I don't buy the argument that Indians aren't fashion conscious. The problem is that there are a LOT of poor people in India who don't have vast sums to spend on a luxury smartphone like the ones Apple sells. Indian's have a (probably deserved) reputation
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It's a hard sell among the regular population, but Apple makes products for the high-end of the market. Provided there are enough people capable of buying their products, they don't need to worry about making things affordable for those who can't. With around 1.3B people living in India, even if only the top 5% can afford Apple products, that's still 65M people, which is far larger than some of the markets Apple has already gone into.
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What the hell are you talking about?!? India is one of the largest consumers of gold primarily used in local jewelry (https://www.thehindu.com/business/india-gold-demand-seen-rising/article23763376.ece). Its pretty common to see trucks, cars and tuk-tuks blinged out with all sorts of decorations. If anything the iPhone style is too western in its minimalist style. I'm sure the gold phone will sell like hotcakes and if they can have one with 10 colors on one phone that will sell to.
Now you would be correc
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LOL
You would be hard pressed to find a country in the world which was less interested in shiny.
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Since you posted something on Slashdot, the logical course of action would be to start with yourself.
India and overpriced jewlery. Such a nice fit. NOT (Score:4, Insightful)
Because when all you have is $1670 a year (median income), then surely, we can expect everyone to invest a $1000 for the privilege to whore off all their biometric data to a bunch of psychopaths, using a shiny trinket that contains electronics more as a second thought than as a function. --.--
I hope they try, and lose a fuckton of their imaginary money in the process.
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whore off all their biometric data to a bunch of psychopaths
Is that something I missed in Apple's quarterly report?
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Like the a great philosopher once said:
A measure of a man is which mobile phone he or she chooses. If she chooses the wrong one* then charity work, political views, family values and artistic endeavours are moot, they chose the wrong phone and have therefore condemned us all and should not be considered human.
* Note that apparently the wrong phone stores the finger print / face data in a secure enclave designed never to be able to transmit that data off the phone (and yes I believe that because hackers mana
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On the complete off chance somebody comes back to the archives to read this I was unclear in the above message.
The fingerprint and face data never leaves the secure enclave chip on the phone.
Other health data (heart rate, exercise, etc) is the stuff that can be shared to third party apps only if the user allows it.
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market research much? (Score:2)
Did Apple even do market research on why they don't get a big foothold in India?
I'm sure the things they've now come up with were not in the top things to change.
This is a market where even $50 android devices have a hard enough time.
I hope they fail miserably (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple is the largest most valued company in the world, not because they have the best products or most customers, but because they have the most shrewd and aggressive business tactics.
This is a stark contrast in India, a relatively poor country still emerging on the world economy.
It's disgusting to think that this is where Apple set their sights, to sell their luxury phones at $800 -- $200 for hardware and $600 for Apple logotype, and similar pricing.
Apple knows there's a "gotta have it" mentality about the
Listen to me, I am Indian... (Score:4, Interesting)
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It is a fact, India is a country with a large and extremely diverse population, the scale of operations are different. There are people of all shades in this country too. Given the right carrot, many would like to possess an Apple device. The ones who do not mind the current price and service levels already possess an apple device right now. The challenge for Apple now would be to gain the mind share of the ones who are more value conscious besides trying to get the Enterprises holding back as the Enterpris
Re: India is not EU or America (Score:2)
sure (Score:2)
1% of 1,355,000,000 = 13,550,000 (Score:2)
Assuming the Iphone is targetted at the top 1%, there are arguably more customers in India than US or EU. Just like Mercedes, etc, Apple doesn't care about low sales numbers as long as they get high profit numbers.