Indian Apple fans set up Whoever entered the iPhone maker’s first store in Mumbai on Tuesday saw a special guest: Apple CEO Tim Cook, who flew to Mumbai to inaugurate the company’s first Indian retail store.
The Bandra Kurla Complex store in Mumbai is the culmination of a year-long campaign by Apple and Cook to open a store in the South Asian country. Cook announced first Plans for an Indian retail store in 2020 with a target opening date of 2021. But the COVID pandemic forced Apple to postpone its plans.
Apple will open a second retail store in New Delhi on Thursday. The company hasn’t expanded into a new country since 2018, when it opened a branch in Bangkok.
Hello Bombay! We can’t wait to welcome our customers to the new Apple BKC tomorrow. 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/9V5074OA8W
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 17, 2023
The company’s efforts to open an Indian store have long been hampered by regulations requiring foreign retailers to do so source 30% their goods on site. Cook personally lobbying Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to reverse the regulations that were lifted in 2019.
Until 2020 when it opened Online shopApple relied on third parties to sell its products, which Cook called suboptimal. “I don’t want someone else running the brand for us,” says Cook said in 2020when he announced Apple’s first attempt to open a store in India.
Cook also met Indian business leaders, as trust industries leader Mukesh Ambani and Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, during his time in Mumbai, according to local media. The Apple CEO is expected to meet Modi during his journey.
India vs China
Apple is a small player in the Indian smartphone market, capturing only 4% of the market with its premium iPhones. Instead, Indian consumers have turned to cheaper brands from local manufacturers, as well as Chinese and South Korean brands. (Compared to Apple products accounted for 23.7% of smartphone sales in China in the fourth quarter of 2022, even surpassing local Chinese brands).
Still, Apple’s revenue in India is growing, reaching $6 billion in the year ended March, up from $4.1 billion a year earlier. reports Bloomberg. However, that number is much less than the $75 billion that Apple made in China last fiscal year.
Dhiraj Singh – Bloomberg via Getty Images
India is also playing a bigger role in Apple’s supply chain after disruptions in China forced the company to issue warnings about production of its latest iPhone lower than expected ahead of the 2022 holiday season.
Apple made 7% of its iPhones in India last year, which is worth about $7 billion and tripled year-on-year. reports Bloomberg.
Apple’s suppliers are also shifting. Foxconn is already producing the latest iPhones in India and is allegedly is planning a new $700 million plant in the Indian state of Karnataka that will employ 100,000 workers. (Foxconn’s factory in Zhengzhou, China employs about 200,000 people.)
“India is an extremely exciting market for us,” Cook said on a earnings call in February. “We’re essentially taking what we learned years ago in China and how we’re scaling to China and bringing that to fruition,” he continued.
Apple is also shifting production to other Asian countries, with suppliers reportedly investing in countries like Vietnam And Thailand.
Other Asian countries could soon get their first Apple Store. In January, Apple began hiring store managers in Malaysia. reports Bloombergin the Southeast Asian country’s first retail store.