AppleInsider Staff
The institution of installment payment plans and deep discounts in India has netted Apple up to a fourfold boost in iPhone sales over the past four months, said investment firm Credit Suisse, with the company moving nearly 400,000 handsets each month.
According to analyst Sunil Tirumalai, Apple's equal monthly installment (EMI) and cash-back programs have jump-started sales in India, which used to be around 70,000 to 80,000 units per month before the aggressive pricing schemes, reports India's Economic Times.
As a burgeoning market, India's smartphone sector has traditionally been dominated by low-cost feature phones, while high-end products like Apple's iPhone were out of reach for a majority of consumers. The latest estimates suggest the iPhone now accounts for nearly three percent of the entire Indian market.
Apple's "aggressive approach" to iPhone sales in the world's second most-populous nation includes extensive advertising, but more importantly an interest-free EMI initiative that allows buyers to put down a partial payment on an iPhone 4 or 4S and pay the remainder over the next 6 to 12 months.
"The 4-9% implicit discount coupled with the option of easy EMIs spread over 6-12 months became popular," Tirumalai said. "Within a few months, our discussions with handset retailers indicated that iPhone sales went up 3-4x, forcing companies to respond."
In April, Apple added an 18 percent cash discount to the iPhone 4 deal, effectively nullifying the partial down payment. According to the publication, this resulted in an effective discount of 23 to 27 percent, making the handset more attractive for first-time smartphone buyers.
Credit Suisse's report, which based its numbers on mobile device retailers and distributors, is in line with preliminary IDC estimates from February, which noted an identical 400-percent increase in sales.
As part of its push, Apple began offering trade-in rebates earlier in May, with students getting 7,777 rupees (about $134) off certain iPhone models.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
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Christine McKee
54 Comments
Up in Indian??? Gotta proofread the headlines.
Wait. Isn't this the exact same headline and story from a few months ago? Add: The phone looks cool. I'd buy one of those.
Here's an idea. Let savvy young people work off the price of the phone by creating apps tailored to the Indian market.
I thought I read recently (within the last couple weeks or so) that Samsung's shipments are way up in India, too. [quote name="Robin Huber" url="/t/157783/apples-iphone-sales-reportedly-up-400-in-indian-thanks-to-aggressive-pricing-strategies#post_2335902"]Here's an idea. Let savvy young people work off the price of the phone by creating apps tailored to the Indian market.[/quote] Another idea: Create a factory in India so they can create Apple Stores in the big cities thus cutting out the multi-teir distribution system and lack of support that tech usually gets in India. I think the population that can buy will be in these larger cities and think it's likely more sufficient for the effort even if just a tiny portion of the population. Long term I think this could give Apple a presence in India that would make it appealing the way it is in China once the a strong middle class starts to really grow. Note: This is all a hypothesis. If this is in any way possible and viable for Apple I'm certain they would have conceived, researched and documented it long ago.
HI All,
As stated before Apple has to be aggressive in their pricing, since Indians LOVE Apple, but will not spend the 'western' prices to buy unless there is an incentative. Also you have so many cheap 'HIGH END smartphones' that may not give same quality of functionality as Apple (not talking Samsung or HTC, BB etc.), but locally manufactured and allow the 'middle class' to spent less and still feel like the person has a HIGH END smartphone, e.g http://www.micromaxinfo.com/mobiles/smartphones/canvas
I would be very happy, If Apple open a store and of course the first would be in Mumbai ( not capital), but 40% revenue in India comes from this city.