NEW YORK- 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 phones costing more than $700.
Apple reported strong growth in India for the fourth straight quarter in the three months ended June, underscoring continued robust demand for its premium smartphones.
Besides India, the US technology giant set June quarter sales records in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Turkey among emerging markets.
“Today, Apple is reporting a very strong quarter with double-digit revenue growth across our product and services categories and in every geographic segment. We set a new June quarter revenue record of $81.4 billion, up 36% from last year, and the vast majority of markets we tracked grew in double digits, with especially strong growth in emerging markets, including India, Latin America and Vietnam,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said during the company’s earnings call for the June quarter late Tuesday.
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 phones costing more than $700. The company had also reported “double-digit” growth in India in the March quarter this year.
Data from market researcher International Data Corp. (IDC) showed Apple improved its market share in the premium segment to 48.8% in the June quarter last year from 41.2% a year earlier.
The company’s shipments grew 5% last year. Its market share and shipments data for the June quarter this year weren’t available at the time of writing. Experts said the company’s shipments were hit in the June quarter because of a global chip shortage that has affected almost every vendor.
“Apple was hit hard in Q2, compared to other vendors, due to the second wave and supply chain disruptions caused around it. The month of May was impacted the most with shipments halving from April,” said Sanyam Chaurasia, a research analyst at market researcher Canalys.
Navkendar Singh, research director at IDC, noted that the June quarter of 2020 was weak for all companies, with only 18 million shipments. As a result, every vendor should see bumper year-on-year growth this year.
According to analysts, the supply bottlenecks are expected to continue through this year, something Apple also acknowledged during its earnings call. Singh said Apple’s India sales are driven by older devices such as the iPhone 11 and iPhone SE (2020), which remain the key drivers for the company. The iPhone 12 did pick up in terms of sales this year and is expected to do better going forward as the iPhone 13 is launched in a couple of months.
“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,” said Chaurasia at Canalys.
