Comments on: Report: Apple struggling with iPhone in India

Apple is going to sail past its goal of selling 10 million iPhones worldwide this year, but it hasn't really gotten off the ground in India.

[tipoo_]

*wipes tear*

you done me proud, india.

[Mr. Dee]

Apple could at least get about 270,000 iPhone 3G's sold in a developing country such as Jamaica sold. The fact that its here unauthorized on Cable & Wireless (now LIME) and Digicel networks proves its popularity on the island. Apple has signed a deal with CLARO Jamaica to be the exclusive carrier, but CLARO has been rather silent about how its gonna make it available. When I check their website, they only link back to Apples website for more information about the phone. Nothing concerning price, calling plans. Apple should get its act together and just sell the phone for a reasonable price US $350 max and let me use it with any carrier I choose.

[Ramalaka2]

Big "markets" don't necessarily translate into big sales: The marketing people often overlook the cultural factors. What I have observed in India is that you have up to 3 generations living in the same house which means in many households, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters use the laptop that their techie son or daughter brings home at night; the overwhelming compulsion Americans have to constantly be texting or talking on their cellphone isn't as pervasive as it is in the US.

Price is also a major consideration as when the price is far more than had been expected, the incentive to buy is diminished. Plus, India is a Microsoft house.

Besides, who needs an iphone anyway? In India, probably the 11,000 people who own one.

[YankeePoodle]

I cannot believe that the number of IPhones sold is that abysmal. But India does have more of a pre-pay culture than yearly subscription. Even then, I would have to say, some one is sleeping at their wheel. 11K is a bad bad number..

[Thomas, David]

MR. T SAYS!

India ... That's Microsoft Country Fools!

[defmer]

India is not Microsoft country.....its has many states that totally run on Linux and more to follow. Microsoft products are bought and used more in the US of A than in India. get ur facts right!

[DaVinC_Coder]

Its not like that....iPhone is priced here in india at 30K....and HTC touch is priced 13K....and still 3G is yet to hit the india, thats why people prefer windows mobile over iphone

[vijay_t2009]

Well, usually people see what they always wanted to see. Thomas some fools like you write on such sites like this without using their head. By the way Microsoft and it's engineers have achieved lot of things in their lives and I just wonder what's your achievement like. You are too small to write anything about India or Microsoft, so you should better shut your big mouth and enjoy the show.

[usarioclave]

Wow, those partners must be really bad. Apple's probably selling more iPhones in the Indian grey market than through official channels.

[vibhurishi]

you are probably right.

[atish505]

PRICE! PRICE! and PRICE! ... and maybe Placement (distribution)

Price is far bigger factor than promotion and placement. At INR 30,000 (US $ 600+) the phone is affordable by less than 2% of mobile phone buyers since it is not subsidized by the carriers.

India is not a Microsoft house in Mobile arena as the majority of the smart phone market is owned by Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones running Symbian and even Linux.

Nokia N95 can be purchase dofr INR 20,000 in the open market so why would someone go for iPhone shelling out another extra 10,000 (US $ 225).

Apart form price, promotion has been dismal, considering that even non smart phones have big launches and publicity aided by Bollywood stars and Cricket players, the iPhone publicity was dismal.

Also India's mobile infrastructure does not have a 3G network, and Edge download speeds rarely exceed 128 kbps in most cities (upload speeds are even more horrible).

In short these dudes crewed up on the market in India.

[cnetthrowawayaccount]

Number of reasons that I can think of:

1. Apple's never been very good at marketing themselves in India. The iPod sells thanks to word of mouth despite the fact that the itunes store doesn't sell music (only apps for the iphone/touch).

2. Visit an "apple store" here and check out the ignorance and arrogance of the sales staff. Major put off for anyone trying to learn about their products.

3. The iphone is extremely expensive AND locked to one of two providers.

4. Compare with Nokia's offerings - N95/N96/N85/E71/E61/E66 to name a few - which are cheaper, have better specs, and are available EVERYWHERE. Nokia's direct sales and resellers also are much more aggressive at offering options. They start by asking you what you want to do with the phone? Photos? N series. Email? E series. Full size qwerty keyboard? E90. Small qwerty? E71 (the best phone in the world right now, BTW.)

Last and not least, the iPhone is basically an ipod touch with phone capability. High end smartphone users here are extremely technical aware and aren't easily fooled by the lack of substance that the iphone has - a cool touch screen UI and the app store - why would I pay a 100% premium over the touch to get those features? Apart from the obviously broken features - bluetooth, sms forwarding, lack of mms, cut/paste (come on! the dumbest exclusion ever), the idiotic lack of folders in the UI ... the list is endless.

And I type this on one of my several Macs. The iphone is the only Apple product that I've used and hated. The one Apple product I go out of my way to tell people NOT TO BUY.

[defmer]

Thats true in a market survey that we conducted.....as to why they din't go for iPhone......bottom line
1) "a phone with very few features/specs for really high price"
2) People who wanted iphone already have them.....they get it int he black market or ask someone in US of A to get it. Then they are hacked and used. So ignoring the big markets like India for so long as Apple did in its case, was a major factor for its dismal performance.

[Ian_Joyner]

>>>MR. T SAYS!

India ... That's Microsoft Country Fools!<<<

Not necessarily. IBM was certainly no friend to India and pulled out when India wouldn't let them get away with what they wanted to, there had to be more in it for India. Burroughs took better advantage of the situation and made an alliance with Tata, which is one of the largest companies in India, forming Tata-Burroughs, hence giving something back to India. Tata is an all-round company as well as being one of India's largest car manufacturers (along with Mohindra and Mohindra), the founder of Air India (which was nationalized from Tata Airways), and is a very large consultancy organization.

I don't think India is in any way welded to Microsoft, you just have to give them a better deal and make them partners. India is also more likely to like the aesthetics of Macintosh than Windows ? they appreciate good design, art, and spirituality which is present in Mac but devoid in Windows. They'd rather the art of the Hindu Maharajas, than the denial of art, as with the Muslim Moghuls like Aurangzeb (although other Moghuls encouraged discussion and art, like Akbar and Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal). The Moghul empire reached its greatest spread under Aurangzeb, but then all but disappeared after him. India can very quickly change, and bring it about by peaceful and patient revolution.

In order to sell to India, you must appeal to India's sense of culture.

????

[anakin2006]

a $199 iphone ( 9500 rupee ) is resold by india cell carrier for $600 ( 30000 rupee ), it is outright stupid... i bet all those who can gets an iphone from oversea might already have. or just find a cheaper one in grey market. apple has to give up its stubborn in asian countries where pay per charge model is used, instead of one carrier only.

[sdeshpan]

woo hoo! nobody bashing Indian call centers and their fake accents. Have all of us evolved and become global citizens !!!!!!

[AppleSuxLeo]

Apu prefers the "Storm".

[rajeshmathewk]

PRICING STRATEGY... APPLE WENT WRONG..IPHONE OVER PRICED.. APPLE INVITED FAILURE

IPHONE which is sold in U.S at less than $200 (INR 9860) is positioned at India for $608(equivalent INR 30,000) . The mainstream business magazines in India has published the article before the iPhone launch and criticized the pricing policy which is 3 times more costlier for Indian consumers. Apple decided not to care about this and launched the product at $608.

In India NOKIA sells N Series and E series phones in good volumes. Sony and Samsung too sell high end phone in bulk volumes. The census of IT professionals in Bangalore itself is close to 1 million. Why did Apple fail when other companies succeeded in selling high-end phones? Good Case to study.

Many of the prospective customers looked at one more aspect of a product - Value for Money.. decided to go for a Nokia , Sony or So. Do Fair Business. The World is Flat.. The impression Apple has given to Indian consumers is very bad. This will have ripple effect on all further product launch from the company.

The contribution of Carrier suppliers, promotion and distribution is significantly less and can be ignored in this Failure.

[defmer]

In a market survey that we conducted.....as to why they din't go for iPhone......bottom line
1) "a phone with very few features/specs for really high price"
2) People who wanted iphone already have them.....they get it int he black market or ask someone in US of A to get it. Then they are hacked and used. So ignoring the big markets like India for so long as Apple did in its case, was a major factor for its dismal performance.

[sonamkumar]

Iphone failed miserably in India. It's true. Some of the reasons what I feel is :
1. Very very high price (31K gor 8 Gb version)- Even if they would have kept around 20K they would have increased theirs sales many folds.
My reaction and many of my friends reaction - I will buy a laptop instead. (Then you have these netbooks giving you mobility and storage. Spend 22 K on a netbook and an 8 k phone)
2. You have HTC touch phones available here which sells better - HTC Touch Diamond has a better spec and a lower price - as compared to Iphone. Then E71 - great great phone only 20 K.

3. I had got mails that were anti Iphone -citing its inability on many fronts to match some of the other phones - Copy/Paste, video recording, Normal file transfer using BlueTooth between an Iphone and some other phones. Indians are very particular about these trivial things.

4. Bad marketting/Ads - bad follow up too. No price reduction even now!!

5. People in India - they have major trust in Nokia. They are rigid about this and Apple did not do anything to change this feeling amongst the Indian consumers.

[vibhurishi]

reasons for failure :
- people know it sells for $199 in the US. they are not going to fork out 31,000 (8gb model) for the same thing.
- people do not like being tied into a service provider. they have been using SIMs for ages, changing their phones, and they do not like a lock-in.
- Nokia phones with comparable features cost around 15k - 20k INR.
- GPRS / EDGE is not used by most people. They do not want to be forced into an account like that.
- since most people are not on the www, they would prefer to get cheap iPhones

prices of the macbooks have slashed by almost 50%, and unless this happens for the iPhone, it will not sell much.

[aaasolanki]

Most of the important points have already been highlighted in the above posts (high price, bad marketing, lock-ins with the operator, missing features, loyalty to Nokia, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, etc.)

Another interesting fact is that the species named "Apple Fanboys" (or "Fangirls", as the case may be) doesn't exist in India. The reason - In my 24 years I have yet to see a Mac anywhere except showrooms and tech shows. I believe that is one of the primary reasons that drives the sales in US - the whole 'Apple' factor.

P.S.:- To the credit of Apple, 'iPod' has actually become a generic term for MP3/Media players in India. Laymans walk into shops asking salespeople questions like "I need an iPod that can play video, is 4GB and around INR 7500 (around $145)". If the salesperson gives him a Creative Zen or a Sony Walkman which fits the bill, the item is bought and no questions are asked !!!

[dasvadiyan]

Nearly 400% of grey market units compared to brand new units. SInce they were extremely late and lazy to bring it to indian shores. 3G is not available as of now in india so ppl have no regrets in buying 2G units from grey market at a real good price... Apple has not lost a dime due to grey market .. but the people who have lost are the carriers who sell their flawed apple software products . I guess if AT&T sells 10 units 2 units get into grey market around the world. They must sue apple for losses. Follow Nokia's policy of unlocked phones and be saved.

[gsahil2000]

apple lower the prices because iPhone is mainly attracting younger market and students buy phones of mid-range section. It will boost sales in big way !!
i would buy the same day

[dennis_the_bug]

Hahahaha, down the drains, Apple. This one is for slogging your employees.