Apple opens its first store in India

(Bombay) Apple opened its first store in India on Tuesday, underscoring the US tech giant’s growing interest in the South Asian country which potentially represents a key market and alternative to China for manufacturing its products .

Apple CEO Tim Cook opened the store doors in person to welcome the first customers to the applause of staff. In a posh shopping center in the financial capital Bombay, hundreds of consumers of the brand had lined up, some all night, in front of the brand new “Apple Store”.

The Californian company is betting a lot on this country of 1.4 billion people, with the second highest number of smartphone users in the world after China.

It will open a second store in the capital Delhi on Thursday.

The world’s largest company, by market value, is also expanding its manufacturing presence in India, seeking to diversify its supply chain while moving away from its heavy reliance on China.

In a statement on Monday, Apple called these stores in India a “major expansion”. “We are excited to build on our long history,” Apple CEO Tim Cook added in the statement.

Apple launched its online store in India in 2020, but still hadn’t opened a store due to now relaxed investment rules requiring overseas retailers to source 30% of their raw materials locally .

With his 2013 iPod Touch still in its box intact, Purav Mehta, a 30-year-old marketing manager, camped outside the store overnight. “ We have been waiting for this impatiently […] for a long time ”, he told AFP.

A 27-year-old papermaker, Madhav Mimani, traveled some 900 kilometers from Rajasthan to attend the event.

According to him, “ thanks to Apple manufacturing in India, prices will come down because it is locally manufactured, which will make iPhones affordable ”. “This will undoubtedly increase the possibility of Indians buying Indian-made iPhones for sentimental reasons,” he adds.

India has over 600 million smartphone users, with Android devices dominating this price-sensitive market.

Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and Realme had a combined market share of 66% in 2022 and Korea’s Samsung 19%, according to research firm Canalys. Apple iPhones are in the premium segment with only 4% market share last year.

However, according to Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia, Apple could benefit from the upscaling of smartphones and financing programs for Indian retailers and consumers.

“Apple is putting more emphasis on the Indian market because it sees a greater opportunity there,” he told AFP.

In February, during a conference call on Apple’s quarterly results, Tim Cook said that India was “ an extremely interesting market for us and that it is a major objective”.

“ We are using, in essence, what we have learned in China and our progress […] and putting that to good use ”. Apple is “devoting a lot of energy” to India, he added, saying he was “very optimistic” for this country.

India is also becoming a central part of Apple’s plans to move its production of devices and components out of China, amid diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing, but also negative supply chain fallout. China’s ultra-strict anti-COVID-19 policies.

In 2021, only 1% of iPhones were made in India, before rising to 7% last year, Bloomberg reported last week. Apple started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017, through Taiwanese suppliers Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron.

In March, Foxconn said there was no “definitive agreement” for investment in India, after the chief minister of Karnataka (south) announced that iPhones would be manufactured in his state.