Apple's fortunes return in India after short dip
India's continuously growing smartphone market proved an advantage for Apple as it recorded strong double digit growth for its revenues in the second quarter.
Apple makes up for their last year's quarterly dip by recording double digits growth this year
This is an improvement for Apple India as, according to a report by Strategy Analytics, last year "Apple iOS fell 35% annually and shipped 0.8 million smartphones in India in Q2 2016. Apple's smartphone marketshare has halved from 4% to just 2% in India during the past year."
With the 4G network in India improving, Apple's CEO Tim Cook believes it presents a huge opportunity and is the right time to increase investments in India. His comments follow earlier promises in China, where he committed to opening an R&D center last year.
Talking about the second quarter results earning, Cook mentioned: “We set a new March quarter record for India, where revenue grew by strong double digits. We continue to strengthen our local presence across the entire ecosystem, and we’re very optimistic about our future in this remarkable country with its very large, young, and tech-savvy population, fast-growing economy, and improving 4G network infrastructure."
However, their under penetration remains a problem to combat for them. Cook acknowledged this and said, “And so there are a ton of things going on there (India). And we agree that we are underpenetrated there. Our growth rates are good, really good by most people’s expectations, maybe not mine as much."
Apple is going to continue to expand its products in India. Phil Schiller visited India recently to inaugurate App Accelerator as a sign of company's focus on the country. On this Cook said, "We think it's [India's] a great opportunity too, and so we're bringing all the things that we brought to bear in other markets that we've eventually done well in, and that's from channel to stores to our ecosystem and so forth."