Apple Lags Behind Competitors in Fastest Growing Market India

According to recent reports, Apple is lagging behind competitors such as Samsung and Xiaomi in the world’s largest smartphone market — India.

Bloomberg reports that while smartphone sales in India are on the rise, Apple is falling behind heavily in the country while other smartphone brands continue to sell with ease. According to the manager of a Poorvika Mobile World shop in Bengaluru’s busy Madiwala neighborhood, only 25 of every 1000 smartphones that the store sells per month are produced by Apple, as brands such as Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Samsung dominate the market.

“The average budget of a shopper is about 10,000 rupees,” says shop manager Nagaraja B.C., this is approximately $150. The iPhone SE, Apple’s cheapest model, can cost nearly twice that, meaning many of Nagaraja’s customers are simply unable to afford Apple products. This is where companies like Xiaomi step in, for as cheap as $100 customers can buy a Xiaomi Redmi 5A with a bigger battery, better camera, and greater storage capacity. For the majority of Indian customers, the decision is very simple.

Apple currently ranks eleventh amongst brands competing in the country’s smartphone market and accounts for one percent of India’s phone sales, selling fewer than one million phones during the first half of 2018 in the country. In comparison, Xiaomi sold more than 19 million.

Gene Munster, the co-founder of Loup Ventures, commented on Apple’s performance in the country saying: “They’ve largely failed in India, despite comments from the company that they will see more progress. I suspect we’re three years away from Apple highlighting major growth in India.”

Apple, however, has reportedly developed a plan to boost their performance in the country. Due to issues with the Indian government allowing Apple to open their own stores in the country, most iPhones are sold through third-party retailers. While the company can’t just outright lower the price of their smartphones, Apple is reportedly in talks with retailers and banks to run holiday deals all year around.

Apple is also reportedly placing higher sales goals on retailers, insisting that they sell 40 to 50 iPhones a week with the threat of cutting off retailers that regularly fail to meet sales projections. Retail staff will be trained to teach customers how to use iPhones and Apple plans a complete overhaul of store branding and product displays. Apple also hopes to open three official Apple stores in the country in the next year, these will be based in New Delhi, Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore), and Mumbai.

Apple will face some tough times ahead convincing Indian users to adopt their hardware, however. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO of Indian digital payments company Paytm, discussed his company’s decision not to integrate their software with Apple hardware, stating that iOS users represent such a tiny section of the Indian market that developing an iOS app didn’t seem worth the trouble for the company. Sharma stated that unless you particularly love Apple, “there aren’t many reasons to buy this expensive phone.”