Apple CEO Tim Cook says company set new sales record in India in last 6 months

Bengaluru: Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Tuesday that in India, the company set a new first-half record (the company’s fiscal year begins in October).

“So we continue to put great energy there...our objective over time is to go in there with all of our different initiatives from retail and everything else," he said in a post-earnings call.

Cook did not provide any India specific numbers. He, however, noted that India is the third-largest smartphone market in the world and said there are huge opportunities there for Apple. "...we have extremely low share in that market overall. And so we're putting a lot of energy there and working with the carriers in that market, and they're investing enormously on the LTE (high-speed wireless) networks. And the infrastructure has come quite a ways since we began to put a lot of energy in there because of their leadership and so forth," he said.

Shobhit Srivastava, research analyst in Counterpoint Research, which estimates mobile phone shipments, told TOI that India continues to be a challenging but high growth market for Apple. “The increasing installed base of iPhones is a good sign for the company, given the strong stickiness and aspiration value of the brand. It will likely drive upgrades for the brand in future,” he said.

Counterpoint Research’s 2017 rankings of top smartphone manufacturers puts Apple in the 10th spot with a market share of 2.4%. It has moved up three notches from the 13th position in 2016, when it had a 2.2% share. China’s Xiaomi and South Korea’s Samsung ruled the market in 2017 with marketshares of 24% and 19% respectively.