Cook happy at Apple doubling India share, retail stores soon

New Delhi: Bullish on India again, Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday acknowledged that the online store has received a tremendous response in the country, Apple has doubled its India smartphone share to 4 per cent (in the December quarter) and the company is ready to launch retail stores in the country in the future.

Apple, which has already started manufacturing certain iPhone models in India, has worked out locations for its retail stores in the country.

Apple is likely to open its first physical store in Mumbai this year, according to earlier reports.

"We put the online store there for example, and last quarter was the full first quarter of the online store and that has gotten a great reaction to it and has helped us achieve the results that we got to last quarter," Cook told the analysts on the earnings call (US time).

"We are also going in there with retail stores in the future and so we look to that to be another great initiative, and we continue to develop the channel as well."

Riding on the stellar performance of iPhone 11 and XR, Apple for the first time doubled its smartphone market share in India to nearly 4 per cent in the festive quarter of 2020, a CyberMedia Research (CMR) report shared with IANS said earlier this week.

After reporting an all-time high quarterly revenue that crossed $100 billion, Cook said: "If you take India for example, we doubled our business last quarter compared to a year ago but our absolute level of business there is still quite low relative to the size of the opportunity".

He said the company is doing a number of things in India.

"There are several markets I alluded to before. India is one of those where our share is quite low. It did improve from the year ago quarter, our business roughly doubled over that period of time, so we feel very good about the trajectory," Cook elaborated.

In February last year, Cook said that the company is set to open its first branded retail store in the country in 2021.

"I don't want somebody else to run the brand for us," he told investors at the annual shareholder meeting.

"We wouldn't be a very good partner in retail. We like to do things our way," the Apple CEO mentioned.

Apple currently has third-party reseller outlets to sell its range of devices in the country.

The plan for opening owned stores will certainly help Apple in giving a controlled experience of its devices and services as it intends and designed them to be in the country.

Despite arriving in October, the iPhone 12 contributed significantly towards the rise of Apple in Q4 (October-December) in the country, according to data provided by market intelligence firm CMR.

The tech giant registered over 60 per cent growth (year-on-year) in its India business in the full year 2020 while for the festive quarter, the growth was an impressive 100 per cent (YoY).