Apple not the only company to grapple with cash payments in India; cash also figures prominently in car sales
Apple faced an unanticipated challenge soon after it opened two company-owned stores in India last April — many customers wanting to pay in cash — prompting the iPhone maker to install currency note counting machines in both the Mumbai and Delhi outlets.
With customers continuing to stream in with wads of notes to buy mobile phones or computers, payments for 7-9% of the American firm's sales in the two stores in India are made with cash, compared to less than 1% or even nil in its stores in the US or Europe, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Unsurprisingly then, social question-and-answer website Quora is full of queries from consumers on whether they can pay in cash at Apple stores in India, they said.
The proportion of consumers buying Apple products with cash is more in the Delhi store than in the Mumbai store, said one of the persons, who did not wish to be identified.
The two stores in India directly report to the Apple retail team in the US and not to the Apple India sales operations whereby their sales are also accounted for in the global books.
ET's queries emailed to Apple did not elicit a response till press time.
But Apple is not alone in grappling with cash payments in India, even as the government has imposed a cash transaction limit of ₹2 lakh per person per transaction or per day or per event and occasion since 2017 to promote digital payments and restrain black money.
Cash in circulation in the country more than doubled to ₹35.15 lakh crore in March this year from ₹13.35 lakh
