The Challenges of Apple in India
The news is super alarming, Apple is sinking in India. The figure that only 1 in 100 mobile phones is an iPhone speaks of the low preference of mobile phone users in that country for their smart devices. Many people relate the alarming situation to a marketing problem, the truth is that iPhone sales continue to plummet.
Although the company has high hopes for this market, sales do not go hand in hand with marketing. It happens that the multimillionaire company, one of the favorites on a global scale for the quality of its products, lost a trio of sales executives in this country, which is why iPhone sales are decreasing more and more. According to data provided by Counterpoint Research, Apple has only received 1 percent of the market share of smartphones in India during the second quarter of 2018. In other words, only 1 of every 100 mobile phones is an iPhone.
The exact sales figures are 3.2 million units of the iPhone sold in 2017 and less than one million units sold so far in 2018, something that should have raised the alarm of the board of directors. The top executives who leave are responsible for sales and distribution, the head of commercial channels and the head of sales via telephone operators.
The market analysis of Counterpoint suggests that Samsung is the leading company in India, with 29 percent market share, even ahead of Xiaomi. Although it is worth noting that the Chinese company rose from 16 to 28 percent. Among the most popular smartphone manufacturers in India are also Vivo, Oppo and Honor. That's right, Apple belongs to the "Other" category in this country. Among the top five brands on the list, they have managed to acquire approximately 82 percent market share in India. These data are impressive, and more if we take into account that Apple is out of the operation.
Even the fact that Apple has begun to manufacture iPhone SE in India has not positively influenced the company's sales. In fact, its market share has dropped from 2 percent to 1 percent. A problem that does not seem to have a solution in a short time.
And for Apple, India is a very important market. In fact, Tim Cook said that India would be "the second China" for Apple, referring to the sale of smartphones, due to the immense population that the country has. We will see how the company solves this problem.
