Apple is slowly rolling out the Apple Watch worldwide, and the next place to receive it is set to be India — a largely-untapped market which ranks among the biggest in the world.
The Apple Watch will go on sale on November 6, according to Apple’s India website. No prices have been announced yet, but it is likely to be significantly more than the cost in the U.S.
Watching Apple’s progress in India has been intriguing, specifically because it’s such a different market to the U.S.
Recently Tim Cook met with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during which Cook said how India holds a, “very special place in the heart of every Apple employee” because it was the country Steve Jobs visited as a young man searching for inspiration.
This month, it was also announced that Apple will finally be opening its first official Apple Stores in India, in partnership with local consumer electronics chain Croma.
Apple has seen iPhones sales grow in the country in recent years, although new reports about the iPhone 6s have been somewhat disappointing.
India’s Communications and I.T. Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has pushed for Apple to open an R&D center in the country. There has additionally been increasing talk about Foxconn shifting iPhone production to India, since this would allow it to get around the problem of accelerating wage inflation in China, where the majority of iPhones are made at the moment.
How will the Apple Watch fare? Given that the iPhone sells less than 2 million each year in India, and Apple still won’t open up about sales even in established markets like the United States, I would suspect that it will be a tiny number of sales that are made. But it’s still great to see Apple continue its international rollout for the Apple Watch.
Source: Hindustani Times
