On Thursday, Tim Cook, the chief of Apple Inc., singled out India as pivotal for the iPhone maker. He emphasized how India is on the cusp of becoming both a major market and production base for the world’s most populous country. Cook and his lieutenants mentioned India roughly 20 times on a conference call after unveiling earnings. They opened Apple’s first two Indian retail outlets last month. The company posted record sales for a March quarter in India. This reflects its increasing reliance on the market to galvanize overall growth.
Cook told analysts on the call that he really feels that India is at a tipping point because a lot of people are coming into the middle class. He also mentioned the dynamism and vibrancy in the market as unbelievable. Apple seeks to accelerate growth in a country of 1.4 billion where rising incomes are boosting consumer spending. This is happening at a time when smartphone sales are plateauing elsewhere in the world. Although the company doesn’t break out India revenue in its earnings statements, Bloomberg News has reported that Apple posted almost $6 billion of sales there in the year through March.
Apple is also keen to tap into an immense labor pool. The company is exploring ways to reduce its reliance on China as tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to escalate. Its longtime partners, who make most of the world’s iPhones from sprawling factories in China, have added assembly lines at a rapid pace over the past year.
