Apple is working on a long-term strategy to crack the Indian smartphone market. (Image credit: Reuters)
Apple is planning to revamp its strategy to penetrate deeper into India, one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world. A Bloomberg report claims that Apple is working on a long-term strategy to crack the Indian smartphone market, where the company has less than 2 per cent share.
The report said the company set out a revamped strategy last when it got Michel Coulomb to head its operations in India. Coulomb met a few Apple executives in India in June and has laid out a new strategy under which the company will offer better deals to retailers with higher sales targets, setting up of Apple stores, improving its apps and services for the Indian market.
One of the key issues raised by Bloomberg is Apple’s focus on apps and services in India. It’s being reported that Apple has plans to make its Maps work better in India, though that will only happen in 2020. Apart from Apple Maps, the company does not offer its Pay service in the country. Additionally, Siri fails to understand the Indian accent properly.
The report further said Apple will open its exclusive retail stores in India next year. So far, the plan is open retail outlets in three major Indian cities: New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. Apple has been eager to open its exclusive stores in India, but been unable to meet a government requirement of manufacturing 30 per cent of its products in the country. Over the past few months, the company has started building the iPhone SE and iPhone 6s locally in India. However, it is not clear how the company will fulfill the government’s condition for the opening of first-party stores.
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Apple’s cheapest smartphone in India is the iPhone SE, but the phone is twice the price of Xiaomi Redmi 5A, which only costs Rs 5,999 in the country. As part of a new strategy, Apple is closely in touch with retailers to offer year-round deals to consumers without reducing prices of smartphones.
The company’s struggle in India are well documented. iPhones in India are more expensive than what the competition has to offer and it has hampered the company’s growth in India. In comparison, China’s Xiaomi sold 10 million smartphones in India in the second quarter of 2018, making it one of the top mobile phone players in the country.