Apple India logs record sales, re-enters list of top 10 smartphone brands

The maker of popular smart technology products like the iPhone and MacBook has faced stiff competition here, the world's second-largest smartphone market.

After two years of downbeat news, Apple, the premium consumer electronics giant, managed to turn around its business in India. The management of the US-based entity informed its investors on Thursday that it registered record sales in this country during the July-September quarter.

Luca Maestri, senior vice-president and chief financial officer at Apple Inc, said in a post-results conference call that they had “established new Q4 (July-September) records in many major developed and emerging markets”. Including India, America, Canada, Germany, France, Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. As a result, its gross margin expanded 40 basis points, to 38 per cent.

Maestri added the company’s laptop and desktop business had record sales in India. “Despite the tough compare, we generate an all-time revenue record for Mac in the US and in India.” The maker of popular smart technology products like the iPhone and MacBook has faced stiff competition here, the world’s second-largest smartphone market. After shipping in 3.2 million units in 2017, the India unit of Apple sold only 1.7 million units of iPhones in 2018.

More, in October-December 2018, it failed to capture top spot in the premium smartphone market, after years. It fell behind OnePlus (36 per cent market share), with 30 per cent share. In April-June 2019, its share in the above Rs 30,000 price segment fell further — to 21 per cent — and slipped to third spot, behind OnePlus and Samsung.

The firm, however, left no stone unturned to regain top spot this festive season. From new and competitively-priced iPhones to slashing prices of its older models, it had a multi-pronged strategy. The entry-level new iPhone model — iPhone 11 — was priced Rs 64,900, or 15.6 per cent less than the XR variant of 2018. The model is priced even lower than the iPhone X, launched at Rs 70,990 only two years ago.

Also, to capture the country’s shopping mood ahead of the festive season, the new iPhones were made available from September 27 in India, three days ahead of its global launch. According to Navkendar Singh, research director at IDC, the launch date could have been advanced to align it with the upcoming Big Billion Days sale by Flipkart (starting September 29) and similar shopping events that were expected to kick off by the last week of that month.

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Finally, Apple iPad gets its own iPadOS: Compatible devices and what's new

The iPadOS brings desktop-like browsing experience, improved file manager, enhanced multitasking capabilities, redesigned user interface, etc.

Business Standard : American technology company Apple Inc on Tuesday rolled out the iPadOS for the iPad Air 2 (and later versions), all iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation (and later models), and iPad mini 4 (and later models). Announced in May at the Apple’s worldwide developer conference, the iPadOS brings new tools and features to iPads, which were until now using the iOS. The new operating system for iPads brings a desktop-like browsing experience, improved file manager, enhanced multitasking capabilities, redesigned user interface, etc.

Here is what is new in the iPadOS:

Home Screen

The iPadOS brings a redesigned home screen with a new layout to show more apps and information at a glance. The new home screen supports adding multiple widgets, allowing easy access to quick information such as weather, calendar, events, reminders, etc.

Multitasking with 'Split View' and 'Slide Over'

With new Split View and Slide Over feature, the iPadOS makes it easy to work on multiple files and documents, and using the same app for multiple purpose. Now, you can compose an email while viewing another email side by side or access multiple apps like Messages or Calendar with just a swipe.

New capabilities for Apple Pencil

Apple Pencil features are integrated in the iPadOS to make it feel more natural. You can now mark up and send entire webpages, documents or emails on iPad by swiping Apple Pencil from the bottom corner of the screen. A redesigned tool palette gives quick access to tools, colour palettes, shapes, object eraser, a new pixel eraser for removing any part of a stroke and a ruler for drawing straight lines.

Improved Files App

The Files app gets a major improvement and iCloud Drive support for folder sharing. Now, anyone with access to a shared folder will see it in iCloud Drive and will have the ability to access the latest version. The File app now also supports external drives, allowing users to easily plug in USB drives, SD cards or log into an SMB file server, all from within the Files app.

Apple ropes in Nokia veteran Ashish Chowdhary to lead India operations

Chowdhary has held various leadership positions, including Head of Asia Middle East and Africa and prior to that, Head of Global Services Business Unit.

In a fillip to Apple CEO Tim Cook's big future plans for the Indian market, Apple has appointed Ashish Chowdhary, Chief Customer Operations Officer at Nokia Networks, as its India operation head, the Cupertino-based iPhone maker said on Tuesday.

A veteran at Nokia, Chowdhary will take over as Apple India head from January next year, the company confirmed to IANS.

The decision to hire Chowdhary is a testament to the fact that Apple is aiming for a real long-term growth in a price-sensitive market where Apple is an aspirational brand and usually bought by those who have high spending power or can go for older generation phones for affordability.

In line with the development, Nokia also announced on Tuesday changes in the composition of its group leadership team, declaring that Chowdhary will "leave Nokia at the end of 2018 after 15 successful years.

ALSO READ: As iPhone demand wanes, Apple has plan B, but suppliers don't

"Chowdhary will continue to lead Customer Operations and remain a member of the Nokia Group Leadership Team until the end of 2018. He will then leave Nokia to take a leadership position in another company," said Nokia.

Apple has roped in Chowdhary -- who has a sound global as well as local knowledge of the industry -- to get a bigger slice of a market that has nearly 450 million users and is one of the fastest growing after China and the US.

Apple India is currently under Michel Coulomb who took over from Sanjay Kaul in December last year.

Chowdhary has 25 years of international experience in the enterprise and telecom sectors. As Chief Business Officer, he was responsible for Nokia Networks' sales and operations globally.

He has held various leadership positions, including Head of Asia Middle East and Africa and prior to that, Head of Global Services Business Unit.

Both these units contributed nearly half of the company's revenues and were key to the successful transformation of Nokia.

The appointment comes at a time when the iPhone maker is seeking tax relief and other incentives from the government to begin assembling more handsets in the country and its proposal to set up a manufacturing unit is also being evaluated.

Breaking his silence on Apple's India presence, CEO Tim Cook admitted on November 1 that his business was flat in the country in the fourth quarter amid weak currency trends.

Cook, however, stressed he is still a big believer in the Indian middle class.... Read More

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