As Apple continues it global expansion, India marks one of the company’s big next frontiers — with 1.2 billion citizens and a fast-growing smartphone market.
Today, the company gets some good news, in the shape of some great reports about the success of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the country. Since it launched the two next-gen smartphone handsets there in October, Apple has reportedly sold a massive half a million units in the country: twice what it managed during the same timeframe in 2013.
But Tim Cook’s not done yet. He wants to get more iPhones into the country, and that means… cutting Apple’s profits?
To double-down on its inroads in India, Apple has introduced a new scheme in India, halving the credit period given to retailers and lowering its sales margin by 0.5 to 1%. In other words, Apple will take a short-term hit to sell more iPhones in the long-run.
This strategy isn’t totally out of character for Apple. When it was being stretched beyond its means by iPhone 6 demand, Apple cuts its margins by offering Foxconn more money to churn out iPhones at a faster rate of knots.
This isn’t the first glimpse we’ve had of the iPhone 6’s success in India either. Previously we reported that the country’s first shipments of the devices sold out in a lightning-fast 72 hours. Between October 2013 and September 2014, India additionally sold 1 million iPhones, marking a new sales record.
While Apple’s Indian market share is still well below that of other smartphone makers like Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn, things are definitely headed in a positive direction for Cupertino.
Source: Economic Times
Via: iMore
