The Bank of America has come out with some astounding stats. Apple has fallen short of its iPhone sales target in India by a whopping 70%!
Apple’s original iPhone sales taget in India was of 10 million handsets for 2016-17.
However, Apple was unable to meet this number. And that too by a long way! Selling barely 3 million handsets, Apple’s sales figures are nothing to be envious about.
Ungainly as the numbers may be, there’s still something that Apple can take away from them. The sales in India have actually increased since the last year. And looking for year-over-year growth, India was, in fact, one the best-performing markets for Apple.
A large part of Apple’s slow growth here has to do with the Indian market’s high sensitivity to price.
The report explains:
“Historically, India handset market has been a very small market for Apple (iPhones accounting for 1% of sales globally) given the price-sensitive nature of the market. Approx. 70-75% of smartphones sold in India are at the sub-$150 level, while just 7% are in the “high-end” bracket of $300+.”
A lot of other big manufacturers (such as Samsung) counter this price sensitivity by launching loads of low-end and mid-range models.
The problem with Apple is that it has no low-end models.
“Industry participants noted that the actual selling price (ASP) of an Apple iPhone in India is $612, much higher than Samsung’s ASP of $173 and Micromax’s $86. Indeed, Apple’s sales in India are around 2 million, way short of its target of selling 10 million mobile phones in India by 2016-17,”
The failure to meet the iPhone sales target in India looks worse on paper than it actually is. That is why, despite all this, Tim Cook will still consider it to be a positive start for what is definitely going to be a long journey for Apple in India.
