Apple’s numbers in the world’s third largest smartphone market are far from impressive and the most recent numbers show us how much Apple is struggling in the country.
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However, the company hopes that the upcoming iPhone 7 would help revive sales in the Indian market.
According to data from Strategy Analytics, Apple shipped just 800,000 smartphones in India in the second quarter of 2016. A quick glance at the graph tells us that iOS share in India has crumbled down from 4.5% to 2.4%.
Meanwhile, smartphone shipments grew 19 percent annually to reach 31 million units in India during the second quarter of 2016, with over 97 percent of those devices being Android.
While things are looking good for Android, Apple is preparing to shake things up. This number is not only dismal, but a 35 percent decrease from the 1.2 million handsets it shipped in India in Q2 2015. That was not fantastic either, but it was at least higher. In the first quarter of 2016, Apple’s share of sales of phones costing more than $300 grew from 11 percent to 29 percent, while Samsung’s fell from 66 percent to 41 percent.
Gartner estimates that sales of the Apple iPhone are likely to have picked up between 15-20 percent by units in the second quarter over the same quarter in the previous year, according to its research director Anshul Gupta. The reasons for the plummeting sales can be many but the one that needs addressing is the pricing. iPhone attracts duties and customs, post which the bloated price is something that a majority of Indians cannot afford. Companies similar to Apple are expected to get similar treatment. That is certainly an option, but there are no concrete plans yet to do so – that we know of. “We see a future for Apple retail in India”.
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The only success Cupertino company had was in getting a nod from the authorities for the Apple exclusive retail stores. “I want the consumer in India to buy at a price that looks like the United States price”. India is growing quickly due to low smartphone penetration rates, an expanding middle class with more disposable income, and intense competition among major vendors, retailers and operators. However, the average smartphone sold was at $70 and Apple’s iPhone starts at $650.
