Apple opens its first two stores in India

He Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cookscheduled a trip to inaugurate the iPhone maker’s first stores in India next week, highlighting the company’s ambitions for the country as a growth market and manufacturing base.

Cook is likely to preside over the opening of the two outlets in India’s financial and political capital, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because they were private jets. Apple reported on Tuesday, April 11 that open a shop in mumbai the 18 years another in New Delhi On April 20.

The trip comes seven years after the CEO’s inaugural visit in 2016 and coincides with a milestone for the world’s most valuable company: the iPhone sales in India hit all-time high and the country’s annual iPhone exports surged into the billions of dollars. Apple bet on India to diversify its assembly operations outside of China amid tensions between Beijing and Washington.

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Cook plans to open India’s first Apple store in an upscale mall in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex, or BKC, as the neighborhood is called. A few days later, he opened the doors of the New Delhi store, in a luxury shopping center in the Saket neighborhood. The barriers to that store went up Tuesday.

The two stores have been a long time in opening as the strict Indian law prohibits international brands from opening private label outlets unless they supply a significant portion of the products in the country.

Apple did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about Cook’s visit.

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The company opened an online store in India in 2020. The country is the world’s second largest market for smartphones and one of the fastest growing, but the relatively high prices of Apple products remain a deterrent in this nation of 1.4 billion people, where affordability plays an important role. in purchasing decisions.

Between the two store openings, Apple requested a meeting for Cook with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of the people said. The Modi government has boosted electronics manufacturing and offered billions of dollars in incentives to woo Apple’s manufacturing partners such as Foxconn Technology Group and Pegatron Corp.

In Apple earnings conference calls, Cook has stressed the importance of India as a market and production base. During the last of these conferences, Cook said that Apple had established “record quarterly revenue and strong double-digit year-over-year growth” in the country.

“India is a very interesting market for us and one of our main targets,” Cook said on the call. “I am very optimistic about India.”

MRI