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Things Are Going From Bad To Worse For Apple In India (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Despite its increased focus on India, Apple is all set to see a slower year-on-year growth in iPhone sales in the country in 2018. "iPhone India sales were weak in the first half of 2018, and even if they show a big jump in the traditionally strong second half, Apple will still fall short of last year," Neil Shah, research director at market analytics firm Counterpoint Research, told Bloomberg. Apple has been struggling in India for some time now. In the year ended March 2017, its revenue growth fell to 17%, compared to 53% a year ago. This six-year-low growth was mainly due to a high base and a drop in the average selling price of each phone. Apple's biggest struggle in India has been its high price points. iPhones cost between Rs35,000 ($500) and Rs80,000 ($1,100) in India, compared to the average smartphone price of $157 in the country.
Amid all this, the company is seeing a massive churn in its India leadership. Last December, India head Sanjay Kaul quit after a six-year stint. The company has now reportedly lost three more of its top executives, Bloomberg reported on July 15: national sales and distribution chief, Rahul Jain; head of commercial channels Jayant Gupta, and head of telecom carrier sales, Manish Sharma. The company is also overhauling its India sales team, Bloomberg said, quoting unidentified sources.
Amid all this, the company is seeing a massive churn in its India leadership. Last December, India head Sanjay Kaul quit after a six-year stint. The company has now reportedly lost three more of its top executives, Bloomberg reported on July 15: national sales and distribution chief, Rahul Jain; head of commercial channels Jayant Gupta, and head of telecom carrier sales, Manish Sharma. The company is also overhauling its India sales team, Bloomberg said, quoting unidentified sources.
They may have a bit better chance of penetrating a lower income market... Iphones are fairly expensive in a country like the US, completely stupid expensive for a country like India.
Not only did he call a guy who rescued kids a "pedo"
Indeed, he proved that is vulnerable to human emotion and misdirected his frustrations onto someone else. I understand it but that doesn't mean it's ok. A price will be paid for his words.
he also turns out to be one of the biggest contributors to Republican PAC's
I think you a missing the bigger picture.
Forbes:
There’s no doubt that Musk’s commitment to climate change is a life-long dedication: he has declared himself politically independent and announced comparative contributions to PACs aligned to the Democrats. His donation says more about the pernicious role of private money in the U.S. political system but it also shows the pragmatism of a man desperately striving for progress in a complex environment over someone who is a staunch ideologue.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Apple should know better then to think everyone in these countries makes enough to afford a iPhone. Or can even afford to replace one as often as Apple would like. But to me Apple has never bothered to entertain the lower price market with a phone other then the 5C and frankly there are better and cheaper Android alternatives.
Why is it a miserable failure unless a company is not only growing but growing faster than before?
VP: "Hey boss, bad news, we sold more widgets in India this year than we sold in India last year."
CEO: "Jesus, why is everyone around me so incompetent?!"
They're selling a luxury product, facing much more affordable alternatives, in a seriously poor country. And they still managed to move a few million units. Well duh, what's the complaint? The fact that it was not a complete flop should be seen as a victory.
Circumcision is child abuse.
When Indians have a problem with their iDevices, they get shunted to a Bay Area call center whose people speak in thick California accents and who insist on trying multiple approaches based on their training, rather than following comfortable scripts in the manner that local people are used to.
Oh no. What will I do without my precious "mod points"? The horror!
You're selling one of the most ridiculously priced, 1st world phone in a 3rd world country. Gee, what can go wrong?
In all likelihood your execs are quitting because once employed they come to a realisation of how detached from reality your sales targets are.
Indians made great advancements in arithmetic. But to claim that's the basis of mathematics is missing a whole lot. Greek geometry and abstract thinking and a focus on mathematical proof was just as important. In addition, the so-called Indian contribution to math is often conflated with Mesopotamian contribution to math, just as the Islamic contribution used to be greatly conflated with Indian because the West received Indian math through Muslims.
That shit is old af.
How does one compete with Xiaomi in smartphone market in india without doing what samsung did?
Samsung is set to build largest smartphone factory in the world to to india. I bet you it's not going to produce Galaxy S series. It will be producing low and mid range phones, some probably exclusive to India. That's not something easy to do for apple, because trump wants factories in US.
It's all about price there.
Since then the USA put a car on the moon and sent another to Mars. I don't expect the Mars bound car to be operable when we get there but I've heard that the lunar rovers should be well preserved and just need a new battery to get moving again. In other words, what have they done lately?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
A lot of people who have used apple now hate it. And the reason has been bad policies and wicked pricing strategies, and totally lack of quality control in service centers. I have been sort of discussing this with people who switched
There was no option to replace batter or screen earlier. Its available now.
The price in India is very high, compared to what it should be for a 3rd world country.
People are realizing that high battery life is not due to better tech, but is due to low resolution display that iphones have. Especially when they see low cost Android phones having a kick ass display
The lower cost 16GB/32GB models run out of space pretty soon, forcing people to take icloud subscription which no one in India likes
If an iPhone gets damaged, you pay a hefty price to change it, and they give you a refurbished phone as new. The phone looks new, but the one I got had a poor battery. Others had some or the other problem.
Being too secure for most people. Most painful is that kids entered wrong code and phone erased itself. Pretty much no one wanted this level of security. They did want theft protection though.
Whereas phones are launched with high price and hefty discount, the price of old models is inflated back before the new phone releases. This is a common talk now, and people know it is their Indian marketing which has come up with the wicked pricing.
Not that everyone who switched to Android is happy which has another set of problems. But the price point was really good, especially on battery and display resolution. At the same time, most felt that iPhone is generally a more stable / better phone than android.
This is based on my own experience and people I talked to.
Luxury products in India like Apple should pace scale of sales to realistic acceptance levels which is quite modest now and next few years. Likewise on investment. India will grow in time but the departing Execs might have over committed to achievements or vice versa Apple on investment, growth and compensation. It is odd that folks would leave a premium employer like Apple as if there were many viable other options. Maybe Apple's pay for performance drove away Execs who thought they could coast thru exploiting underlings ( common outside India too.)