You might notice, Apple is currently paying more attention to India than before. The iPhone 7, iPhone XR, iPhone SE, and iPhone 6S are already manufacturing in India and recently, the company back to back announces to start assembling iPhone 11 and iPhone SE (2020) locally.
Not only that, but Apple is fully prepared to open its online store as early as next month also along with two physical stores by next year. I totally agreed that the locally assembling plan is taken to avoid import duty and Apple is focusing on India as it is one of the largest growing smartphone markets in the world. But is that all? Well, there may be some other reasons. Our assumption is this progress is the reflection of the US-China tension.
Before going deeper, have a look at the stats first. Apple bagged 19.92% (source) smartphone market share in China during Q2 2020 with over 300 million iPhones in the field and this count is the highest among all the countries, even than the US. In India, the company has a 3.47% (source) smartphone market share in the last quarter.
At the beginning of this month, the US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prevent all the transactions with ByteDance and WeChat. For this Apple may have to remove TikTok and WeChat application from its app store. A survey, after receiving responses from over 1.2 million users, found that around 95% of iPhone users in China are agreed to switch from iOS to other platforms rater avoiding WeChat.
WeChat is so popular in China that its ban can reduce overall iPhone sales by 30%, this is the survey result of Apple analyst MingChi Kou. If so, Apple needs to be prepared for that and as per my point of view, the company has already started the process.
As you know India is one of the fastest-growing smartphone markets around the globe and maximum of the Indians want to get an iPhone at least once. But the one and only problem is pricing, the majority of us can’t afford it.
Now, Apple is setting up its assembly facilities locally so that it can avoid the import duty. Needless to say, that price will be deducted from the selling price. Apart from that, when Apple will start selling its products through its own online or physical stores, it will not have to pay other e-commerce platforms.
Altogether, Apple’s strategic moves will surely reduce its product price a lot and make those affordable to a wider range of Indians than earlier. It’s what Apple exactly wants by expanding the range it is trying to overcome the upcoming downfall, due to the WeChat ban, as much as possible.
It’s obvious to overcome the entire 30% sales of iPhones only in India is very difficult. But keeping in mind the growth of the smartphone market, there is hardly a choice better than India.
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