iPhone sales volume drops, Apple's market share falls in growing India

Apple may consider India one of its important markets for the future, but its sales performance in the country in 2016 has fallen 35 percent year over year, causing a significant loss in overall marketshare, new estimates show.

Android remains the dominant platform in India, climbing from 90 percent operating marketshare in 2015, to 97.1 percent in 2016, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics. Android's gains came from Apple in part, but predominantly from the share of other operating systems falling from 5.5 percent to 0.5 percent from 2015 to 2016.

In a market that increased by 28 percent year-over-year, as a result in the drop in Apple iPhone sales, Apple's marketshare fell from 4.5 percent to 2.4 percent.

"We are in India for the next thousand years," Apple CEO Tim Cook told Indian media in May. "Our horizon is very long. We are focused on best, not most. So it doesn't bother me that we don't have top market share."

After a failed bid to prove that it was selling state-of-the-art or cutting edge technologies, Apple has been fighting India's local sourcing rules that demand that a multinational company source 30 percent of its components in India before retail establishments can operate. However, single-brand retailers like Apple now have a three-year grace period to operate stores before mandatory compliance of the 30 percent rule.

Apple's main assembly partner, Foxconn, is believed to be planning an Apple-focused factory for India, which would fulfill the 30 percent mandate. No deal has yet been signed, and even after negotiations complete, operations would take more than a year to commence.

Earlier this year, Apple launched a technology center in Hyderabad, focused on Apple Maps development. In July, the company leased 40,000 square feet in Bengaluru for a planned design and development accelerator. Neither software development center will have any effect on sourcing percentages.

27 Comments

wigby 692 comments · 15 Years

About 8 years ago

How come we all know this is a BS story but AI publishes it without even mentioning Tim Cook's Q3 conference call that completely contradicts the report?

cali 3494 comments · 10 Years

Ok, I was a little worried. Seriously Apple should aim at %70+ worldwide marketshare and %100+ profitshare.

Dracarys 72 comments · 8 Years

thewhitefalcon said:

After a failed bid to prove that it was selling state-of-the-art or cutting edge technologies

Wait, what? What kind of rathole third-world country is this?

There's no need to be rude about it.

mazda 3s 1598 comments · 16 Years

Instead rehashing suspect figures, why isn't AI reporting on this bombshell????

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2016/08/samsung-caught-using-apple-watch-design-figures-in-a-recent-patent-filing.html

maestro64 5029 comments · 19 Years

sog35 said:

This is UTTER BULLSHIT.

Go to the conference call transcripts to see these guys are LIARS.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3836826-apples-aapl-ceo-tim-cook-q1-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=4
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3968300-apple-aapl-timothy-donald-cook-q2-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=2
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3991811-apple-aapl-timothy-donald-cook-q3-2016-results-earnings-call-transcriptTim Cook made these statements with the threat of JAIL TIME if they were false or misleading.

Quarter ending Dec2015 (Q1) - Cook said iPhone sales in India were up 76% YoY
Quarter ending Mar2016 (Q2) - Cook said iPhone sales in India were up 56% YoY
For 3 Quarters ending June2016 (Q1-Q3) - Cook said iPhone sales in India were up 51% YoY

I find it IMPOSSIBLE that iPhone sales were down 35% looking at those numbers above.

This is just another example of how these companies like Stratgic Analytics spread total bullshit in order to please their customers (who are Apple competitors)

It just means more crap was sold in India verses Apple's uptick in numbers, so yes Apple's YoY number went up, however, all the other cheap crap went up faster so they could be down when they are in fact up. It is the Statistic Game and the fact everyone makes up numbers. My prediction is Apple numbers will never be close their numbers in US, EU or China. The large majority of Indians will never spend the money for an Iphone. It is just a cultural difference, if you talk to these folks and try to understand why they buy a low cost android phone they can not explain the purchase decision other than saying the value to price is best. The problem is they do not understand what Value is. Most equate Value to price, and lower price has higher value. They are still check list buys like US consumers were back in the 80's and 90's.