India - page 5

Apple just had its best September quarter of all-time and CEO Tim Cook couldn’t have sounded happier when he got on the phone with investors today. The company is heading into the holiday season with its best lineup ever and expects to set more records next quarter.

Investors did not seem to be too impressed with the results though. Apple’s stock price dropped from $222.22 to as low as $206 in after-hours training. Despite Wall Street’s worries about Apple, there was plenty of achievements for Tim Cook and Luca Maestri to boast about on today’s call.

There were the biggest revelations from today’s call:

The days are over when Google Translate could only provide spoken translations with an American accent. The latest iOS version adds regional accents from the former British Empire.

And it goes beyond English. French translations can be said in a Canadian accent, for example.

There’s more bad news for Apple’s fortunes in India. According to a new report, the iPhone XS and XS Max have seen lower sales in the Indian market than previous devices after the first weekend.

What’s more, they could be about to face new government-imposed challenges, too.

Apple is supposedly cooling its plans to bring Apple Pay to India, despite having discussions with leading banks and the National Payments Corporation of India.

Eddy Cue previously said that Apple hoped to bring Apple Pay to India sooner rather than later. “It is great that all of these payment mechanisms are coming out in India because it empowers people to be able to pay,” Cue said last year. “What Apple Pay does is make that process easy, integrated and safe. We absolutely want to bring Apple Pay to the market here.”

Apple has so far created 3,500 jobs at its offices in Hyderabad, India — and it plans to hire 1,500 more people, bringing the total to 5,000. That’s in excess of the 4,000 jobs Apple initially promised it would create in India.

The news was shared by Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary of IT and Industries in the Telangana government, located in the southern part of the country.

It’s going to be years before Apple India can hope to open flagship retail stores. So the company is allowing local franchisees to open huge Apple stores in major cities to take their place.

India puts stringent requirements on companies who want to open retail stores, and so far Apple hasn’t met them.

Apple may have “won” its standoff with the FBI over privacy, but it’s unlikely to be able to repeat the same feat in a clash with the Indian government on the same topic.

A new article published by Reuters runs down the various obstacles Apple faces in its battle with India’s telecom regulator over an anti-spam app, which Apple believes infringes on user privacy. And while nothing is settled yet, this looks like one fight Apple won’t be winning!

Apple may be kicking all kinds of butt on the global stage, but it’s struggling in India, where the iPhone currently ranks 11th in the overall list of smartphones. To put that in perspective, Apple accounts for just 1 percent of India’s iPhone sales, with fewer than 1 million handsets sold in the first half of this year.

But it’s got a plan (well, several) to change all that.

Faced with the threat of having the iPhone out of India altogether, Apple has supposedly agreed to implement a government-sanctioned Do Not Disturb app on its platform.

Apple had previously refused to carry the app, which it claimed violates user privacy by allowing the Indian government to access customers’ call and text message logs. Last week, we reported how this standoff could have resulted in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India requiring mobile operators in the country to stop supporting the iPhone as a result.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India could require mobile operators in the country to stop supporting the iPhone if Apple doesn’t allow a mobile app that lets users report unwanted calls and messages.

Apple has been going back and forth with officials in India over the government-approved anti-spam mobile app, which Apple has suggested violates user privacy.

Apple’s biggest competitor in China could soon supplant it as the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world in terms of units shipped.

Huawei says it’s on track to ship 200 million phones by the end of 2018 after setting a blistering pace of 100 million units shipped as of July 18. That won’t be quite enough to top the number of iPhones Apple sold last year, but 2019 could be Huawei’s biggest year ever.

Three members of Apple’s executive team in India have departed, due to the company’s ongoing struggle to boost iPhones sales in the world’s fastest-growing major smartphone market.

The execs include Apple’s national sales and distribution chief, the head of its commercial channels and mid-market business, and the head of telecom carrier sales. Apple’s Indian sales team is now restructuring as a result.

Apple supplier Wistron has started production of the iPhone 6s at its factory in Bengaluru, India.

This marks the second iPhone to be produced in India. Last year, Wistron began producing the iPhone SE in India. The iPhone 6s, which launched in 2015, is a logical choice as a follow-up due to the popularity of the handset in India, thanks to its cheaper price.

The 2018-era iPhone refresh could be a bit more colorful than recent years if two new images are to believed.

Supposedly leaked from one of the iPhone manufacturing plants in India, the pictures show two alleged iPhone prototypes, complete with “rich gold stainless steel frame” and violet and green color glass backs.

Apple plans to start manufacturing another iPhone in India, according to a new report.

Partner Wistron has already started trial production of the iPhone 6s Plus at its Bangalore plant, where it has been assembling the iPhone SE since last year. Source say mass-production will begin in “the next couple of weeks.”

Perhaps attempting to avoid its own Facebook-style privacy scandal, Apple has supposedly hit a road block in collaborating with the Indian government. The clash regards a government-approved anti-spam mobile app, which Apple was concerned violated user privacy.

And Indian regulators aren’t too happy about it!

India has just struck Apple another harsh blow by raising its duty on imported mobile phones from 15 percent to 20 percent.

The move, which will make imported iPhones more expensive, follows less than two months after the country raised the import duty from 10 percent to 15 percent. It comes at a time when Apple is trying to grow its market in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market.

Apple manufacturer Wistron is reportedly putting the final touches on a deal that will allow it to secure another 100 acres of land in India’s tech hub of Bengaluru.

The $157 million facility will be used to start building iPhone 6s handsets in India. At present, Wistron only produces the iPhone SE in India, although it always planned to expand to other handsets after proving that Indian manufacturing was viable.

Apple’s Indian boss Sanjay Kaul is reportedly leaving Apple with immediate effect, following the company’s slowest growth in India in more than five years — and no sign of things turning around soon.

He will be replaced by Michel Coulomb as its top sales executive in India, previously the managing director for Apple in South Asia.

Apple has raised the price of many iPhone handsets in India, following last week’s increase in import duties on the new handset.

In new rules announced last week, the cost of importing smartphones to India was raised from 10 to 15 percent. As we noted at the time, Apple’s choices were to either raise the price of iPhones in India, or to eat some of the cost itself in order to keep pricing competitive. It seems that Apple did some combination of the two — since prices have been increased an average of 3.5 percent.

Apple may be keen to grow its business in India, but it’s certainly not getting any favors from the government.

In a new ruling, it’s been announced that the import tax paid on smartphones is being raised from 10 to 15 percent in a decision that will hurt Apple’s business in the country. Unless Apple absorbs the cost itself, this will make its iPhones more expensive at a time when it is desperate to get more handsets into customers’ hands.

Apple wants to ramp up its iPhone manufacturing in India, but coming to an arrangement with the Indian government over all the necessary details — including Apple’s desired tax breaks — is proving to be hard work.

A new report claims that Apple has asked the government in India to defer a planned increase on import taxes for mobile phone parts, but that the request is unlikely to be successful.

Retailers in India are not happy about the way that Apple is reducing their cut of the new iPhone X handsets, by reducing retail margins on the device by close to 30 percent.

As a result, some retailers in the country — such as Bengaluru-based Sangeetha Mobiles, which owns 400 stores across India — have stopped taking orders for the iPhone X altogether.

Apple is set to make another major play for emerging markets next year with the rumored release of a new iPhone SE 2 handset.

According to a rumor out of Apple’s supply chain, the new iPhone SE 2 will be assembled by Taiwanese manufacturer Winstron, only all units will be put together in Bengaluru, India.

Apple appears to have partially backed down in a clash with the Indian government over whether or not to help develop an anti-spam application for iOS, having previously refused to do so because of privacy concerns.

The issue concerned a so-called “Do Not Disturb” app, which the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India wanted Apple to distribute on the App Store. The app is already available on Android.