iPhones in India continue to sell like hot cakes

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Recently, Apple announced its financial results for the third quarter ended July 26, 2021. The company posted a record revenue for the June quarter at $81.4 billion dollars, which went up by 36% YoY. This comes on the back of strong double digit growth in emerging markets like India, Latin America and Vietnam. The company’s exceptional performance in India continued for the third straight quarter in three months, underscoring continued demand for its premium smartphones.

Stellar performance

According to analysts, Apple has only a 2-3% market share in India’s smartphone market, but it accounts for almost half of all premium smartphones sold in the country, which comprises of phones costing more than $700.

In a data compiled by International Data Corporation (IDC), Apple had improved it’s market share in the premium segment to 48.8% in the June quarter last year from 41.2% a year earlier. In the first three months this year, the tech giant recorded its best ever quarterly sales of notebooks and tablets in the country, data from Singapore based markets research firm Canalys show.

Key growth driver

Navkendar Singh, Research Director of IDC, said that supply bottlenecks are expected to continue this year, something Apple also acknowledged during its earnings call. He also added that Apple’s India sales are driven by older devices such as the iPhone 11 and iPhone SE (2020). This continued to be the key growth driver for the company. Further, the iPhone 12 did pick up in terms of sales this year and is expected to do better going forward as iPhone 13 is going to be launched in the next couple of months.

Sanyam Chaurasiya, research analyst at Canalys, a markets research firm, said that the growth was primarily driven by persistent demand for old gen iPhone 11 and diverse iPhone 12 portfolio making affordability of iOS devices easier, which was also well supported by attracting financial offers.