Slashdot Mirror
To Gain Foothold in India, Apple Plans To Open Stores, Offer Deals All Year Around, and Fix Services: Report (bloomberg.com)
Apple has long struggled to gain market share in India, the world's second largest smartphone market. But now, it apparently plans to change that. Before we get into it, here is some disclaimer: Rumors of Apple's intentions to improve its presence in India are nearly as old as Apple's existence. From Bloomberg: Instead of officially lowering its prices, Apple is in talks with retailers and banks to offer holiday deals all year round, according to people familiar with the plans. Those people say Apple is also asking some individual stores to more than quadruple sales targets, to 40 or 50 iPhones a week, and plans to cut off retailers that consistently fail to hit the mark. Retail sales staff will be trained to teach customers how to use their devices, and Apple intends to overhaul in-store branding and product displays. Executives would conduct daily conference calls with stores to gauge progress.
Apple hopes to start opening stores in India next year and eventually set up three in New Delhi, Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore), and Mumbai, according to the people familiar with the company's plans. The government has long required foreign companies opening shops to manufacture 30 percent of their products locally, but it said in January that businesses can reduce that requirement by sourcing more Indian goods for their global operations. Apple now builds some of its India-aimed iPhone SE and 6s models in Bengaluru; it's unclear whether the company plans to take advantage of the revised policy or try to hit the 30 percent mark. The report adds that Apple has India in its mind as it revamps many of its services.
Apple hopes to start opening stores in India next year and eventually set up three in New Delhi, Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore), and Mumbai, according to the people familiar with the company's plans. The government has long required foreign companies opening shops to manufacture 30 percent of their products locally, but it said in January that businesses can reduce that requirement by sourcing more Indian goods for their global operations. Apple now builds some of its India-aimed iPhone SE and 6s models in Bengaluru; it's unclear whether the company plans to take advantage of the revised policy or try to hit the 30 percent mark. The report adds that Apple has India in its mind as it revamps many of its services.
Ya know, India is one of those places where people need the stuff they buy first and foremost to accomplish something, not as a fashion statement. It's kinda very "western" to have money to squander on "ohh, shiny!".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because when all you have is $1670 a year (median income), then surely, we can expect everyone to invest a $1000 for the privilege to whore off all their biometric data to a bunch of psychopaths, using a shiny trinket that contains electronics more as a second thought than as a function. --.--
I hope they try, and lose a fuckton of their imaginary money in the process.
whore off all their biometric data to a bunch of psychopaths
Is that something I missed in Apple's quarterly report?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Did Apple even do market research on why they don't get a big foothold in India?
I'm sure the things they've now come up with were not in the top things to change.
This is a market where even $50 android devices have a hard enough time.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Apple is the largest most valued company in the world, not because they have the best products or most customers, but because they have the most shrewd and aggressive business tactics.
This is a stark contrast in India, a relatively poor country still emerging on the world economy.
It's disgusting to think that this is where Apple set their sights, to sell their luxury phones at $800 -- $200 for hardware and $600 for Apple logotype, and similar pricing.
Apple knows there's a "gotta have it" mentality about their stupid products, and when they start marketing that to a poor population...
American greed and capitalism at its finest.
You are all wrong. As much I want apple to crash and burn, Indians (living in India) love it and consider it as status symbol (dont ask me why, damned if I know) Median income is not a good metric, on average someone IT need to save 2-6 months salary to get new iphone and many are stupid enough to do just that, and we have lot of people in IT.
It's a cultural thing. For centuries, Indians have aspired to have a lot of jewelry. Families pass on these jewelries down the line. Whenever they gather for an Indian wedding or something, you will see them wearing a ton of it. It's a matter of pride for them. Smartphones, as someone pointed out above, is not that. It's a commodity for Indians. Most of them don't see a point in getting the latest iPhone feature. They want a phone to keep in touch with their family and friends, and mostly, to colleagues. Sure, not everyone is cut out with the same cloth. There are more than 1.3 billion people in India. Most of them earn under $1,600 in a year. They buy a phone and put a cover on it, a tempered glass and everything so that it can last for more than at least two years. In general, Indians are also very price sensitive. So it is not uncommon to find a businessman who makes thousands of dollars each month to use an iPhone 5s.
US and EU have an ample supply of used iPhones for more thrifty consumers. India does not welcome used devices. While Apple may covet the large growing India consumers , Apple does not want to cannibalize its lucrative high tier models outside India either, so the market share will be slow developing.
I usually write Lëtzebuerg. Ok, not necessarily when the rest of the text is in English. ;)
This aside, you're right. Wanting to show off wealth is mostly common (in Europe) with people who actually have none. The proverbial ghetto car is the BMW "3er series", usually running on leasing because, well, buying is beyond reach. Same with cellphones.
But with the latter it's changing. Mostly because there is no "more" in that area. You can of course buy a cell phone made from 24karat gold with diamonds, but that kind of flashy show of wealth is not very "European". Here, you rather show wealth in status symbols that are expensive but don't look it, it's more an "in-joke" for the rich and those that wanna be. Take a look at a Bentley Mulsanne, it doesn't look flashy (personally, I think it's ugly as sin), you don't get to see a lot of its luxury, but if you know what it is, you know that it's prohibitively expensive and whoever owns one has money to burn. Literally.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think you guys are nuts. Europe is full of palaces and stately homes which were built not to live in, but to just show off the owners wealth. Most luxury brands come from Europe. I get that you guys don't like "brown people" coming into your countries (like Luxembourg), but Europe is full of displays of wealth.
Since you posted something on Slashdot, the logical course of action would be to start with yourself.
#DeleteFacebook
Ya know, India is one of those places where people need the stuff they buy first and foremost to accomplish something, not as a fashion statement.
While I've never spent time in India I have spent a lot of time working with people from India and in my experience they are no more or less fashion conscious than any other group of people. I've met plenty of Indians who are as vain as any westerners. I don't buy the argument that Indians aren't fashion conscious. The problem is that there are a LOT of poor people in India who don't have vast sums to spend on a luxury smartphone like the ones Apple sells. Indian's have a (probably deserved) reputation for being cheap in the sense of thrifty but that doesn't mean they don't spend money on bling or aren't interested in it.
It's kinda very "western" to have money to squander on "ohh, shiny!".
Hogwash. I've traveled all over the world and there is no culture I've ever seen where there isn't a strong faction of people who squander money on "ohh, shiny". We're just not all that different. How our materialism manifests varies from place to place but it's still omnipresent.
According to the Americans here in Germany, whose "vlogs" I follow, this is only an American thing, and in most of Europe, people are far less materialistic.
The particular manner in which materialism manifests varies from country to country but if you need evidence that Europeans are materialistic one merely has to look at places like Versailles. They have literal freaking palaces and you're going to argue that they don't care about showing off wealth? How many of the major fashion brands are European brands? Paris and Milan are two of the major fashion centers in the world. There are plenty of people in every country on Earth who are materialistic and want to show it off. The only difference is how they go about it.
The only people I ever see act like that, in Germany, France, Belgium, Luxemburg*, Austria, Switzerland, and Spain (so the countries where I was more than a month of my life), are usually the poor immigrant / ghetto type, and even of those, only the sub-group that listens to gangsta rap featuring such "bling" in their videos.
Showing off wealth comes in many forms. Just because some Europeans use some of the less gauche ones doesn't mean they aren't doing it. If you have a yacht in the harbor in Monaco you're showing off your bling. So is buying a fancy purse or expensive shoes.
Once they have a foothold, of course, they can break services, close stores, and offer deals only at 2:30AM on days ending in W.
You will also notice that this is a thing of the past, and that these buildings to show off wealth are a relic from times when aristocracy tried to outdo each other in a show of wealth and extravaganza.
Maybe the fact that many countries wiped those aristocrats off the map, along with a culture of modesty, rooted in protestant religions that tried to demonstrate a contrast to the opulence and show of wealth and splendor of the Roman Catholic Church, especially in northern Europe, led to a culture where showing off your wealth is simply not en vogue anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Assuming the Iphone is targetted at the top 1%, there are arguably more customers in India than US or EU. Just like Mercedes, etc, Apple doesn't care about low sales numbers as long as they get high profit numbers.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Like the a great philosopher once said:
A measure of a man is which mobile phone he or she chooses. If she chooses the wrong one* then charity work, political views, family values and artistic endeavours are moot, they chose the wrong phone and have therefore condemned us all and should not be considered human.
* Note that apparently the wrong phone stores the finger print / face data in a secure enclave designed never to be able to transmit that data off the phone (and yes I believe that because hackers managed to do a bit of reverse engineering on the software - not the data - that's run in the enclave), 3rd party apps can only access that data with the user's permission, run by a company that has consistently butted heads with law enforcement overreach.
Also the investor/think tank group National Center for Public Policy Research that was asking Apple to give up on their sustainability plans and focus purely on profit were shut down at a shareholder meeting.
Hey Apple isn't perfect, but, you said a lot of stuff that sounds smart but it wrong.
It's turtles all the way down.
On the complete off chance somebody comes back to the archives to read this I was unclear in the above message.
The fingerprint and face data never leaves the secure enclave chip on the phone.
Other health data (heart rate, exercise, etc) is the stuff that can be shared to third party apps only if the user allows it.
It's turtles all the way down.