Apple today made an anti-spam application developed by the Indian government available on that country’s version of its App Store. The software is designed to help prevent an avalanche of commercial phone calls and texts, but Apple had previously expressed concerns that it revealed too much information about users to the government.
The version of TRAI DND – Do Not Disturb just approved appears to deal with Apple’s concerns.
Apple has hired the former Chief Customer Operations Officer at Nokia Networks to head up its India operations department, a new report claims. Ashish Chowdhary will take up the role of Apple’s India head from January as Apple continues to try and grow its brand in the country.
India, which has a population of around 1.339 billion, is one of the fastest growing mobile markets after China and the U.S. However, it is one that Apple has largely failed to crack so far.
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.
