Apple and India are slowly starting to love each other

Apple saw iPhone sales in India rise a whopping 76 percent in India in the final three months of 2015, the company said overnight. But the company should not be popping the champagne just yet.

While Apple posted strong numbers around the world, analysts will likely be unhappy that the iPhone’s era of hypergrowth is mostly over.

Except for in India, where it’s just beginning.

India’s iPhone sales growth far outpaced China’s – just 20 percent – in the previous quarter, CEO Tim Cook said on a call with analysts.

“And as you know, we’ve been putting increasingly more energy in India. India revenue for us in the first quarter was up 38 percent,” he added. India is lumped in with the “rest of Asia-Pacific” in Apple’s financials.

That all major tech companies in the world are spending some serious time wooing Indians is not news anymore. Just ask Google or Facebook.

Apple has been a little late to the game, what with its products being exorbitantly priced, and Indians liking to count their pennies.

But as of the past few months, the company has doubled down on the market, expanding its distributor base, bringing in easy financing schemes for its phones, and even launching its first TV spot for the Indian buyer.

When in India

Those efforts showed results. Apple does not break down sales for India, but Tarun Pathak, senior analyst for mobile devices and ecosystems at research firm Counterpoint Technology Market Research said the company sold 800,000 iPhones in India during the fourth quarter of 2015, better than ever before.

800,000 is a whole world of improvement over the 500,000 iPhones Apple sold during the same period in 2014.

Apple’s 800,000 in India compares with about 20 million iPhone sales in China. While the media calls India the “bright spot” in Apple’s results, the country isn’t going to make any major difference in Apple’s balance sheet in the near future.

They’re still on the 4s

Across the world, Apple lives off an almost cultish following that peaks over new gadget launches. That is the driver of sales for the company. Not so in India.
“In India, Apple’s plan is not to sell new phones, it is just to sell iPhones,” Counterpoint’s Tarun explained.