Does Apple's presence and the
subsequent marketing strategy make any sense in India?
No!
Few months ago, when Apple
CEO Tim Cook was in India, he stressed that Apple is betting big on India and
is preparing for the day when India would become the next China of the
smartphone revolution. He said that India is at same juncture in telecom
revolution where China was some 7 to 10 years ago.
Yes, India is going to be the
next big thing in telecom after America and China. It has already replaced
America as the market having second largest smartphone user base. And since it
has immense untapped potential, it is going to be the darling of whole world,
including companies from America and China - either for hardware or software.
India's smartphone user base
is at 220 million while the number of mobile subscriptions in the country has
reached to 1.1 billion is expected to scale up to 1.4 billion by 2021. Going by
the base 220 million smartphone users, the smartphone penetration in India is
still at 20% of the overall mobile phone subscription.
So, that is huge..huge
opportunity.
Smartphone shipments to India
grew at over 20% the last year. This year, India is expected to buy around 150
million smartphones. According to some estimates, the smartphone bases is
projected to cross 700 million mark by 2020. It may be even faster than that as
technological advancements are on the verge of making Indian telecom a data
driven market. Smartphone prices are rapidly coming down, especially of 4G and
LTE enabled devices. And as the Indian government is betting big on smartphones
to drive its digital governance plan, it is just waiting to happen.
Now if Tim Cook sees India
market where Chinese telecom sector was some 7 to 10 years ago, that would be,
but India may bridge this gap much sooner than he would have calculated. It may
be by 2019 or 2020.
Since Apple went on to
increase falling prices of its iphone 6, 6S and 5S to further beef up its luxury
brand perception and has launched iPhone 7 at the same price points, from Rs.
60,000 to Rs. 92,000, it seems Apple and Tim Cook have miscalculated the time
when India would be finally ready to take off, as was the case with China.
Indian smartphone market has
already taken off. Most of the new and replacement mobile phones are going to be
smartphones as data prices have come crushingly low with the entry of a new
operator, Reliance Jio, that has announced to charge only for data (and not for
voice).
To continue..
©SantoshChaubey