Apple sees another record qtr in India; iPhone mkt share hits 6%

livemint.com:

₹50,000. On 30 October, Mint reported that Apple is nearing $10 billion in annual revenue from India. Its India financials, filed with the ministry of corporate affairs on 28 October, reported a 48% annual revenue growth to $5.9 billion in FY23.

Retailers and industry analysts told Mint at the time that Apple had seen good demand despite a tepid smartphone market. IDC’s Singh said that Apple “has had a great festive quarter", which is expected to bolster its overall performance in India. Singh added that Apple led the overall smartphone market in terms of India’s smartphone revenue share in the first six months, and given that it has since had a strong September quarter, there’s a good chance that it could beat Samsung to capture the top spot this year.

Samsung, to be sure, ships far more devices than Apple in India—in 2022, it shipped 26.1 million smartphones in the country, in comparison with Apple’s 6.5 million iPhones, according to Counterpoint data. While Apple’s immediate growth potential looks strong, analysts and retailers both believe this could slow. “At some point in the near future, Apple will hit the ceiling, given that the market for premium phones is only about one-fifth of the overall market.

Apple can only sell so many $1,000 phones in the long run, and at this point, the room for exponential growth will run out," IDC’s Singh said. Manish Khatri, partner at Mumbai-based retailer Mahesh Telecom, said that Apple’s mainstay for growth would be to offer its one- or two-year-old flagship phones at around the ₹50,000 price point. “The iPhone SE never sold well despite being priced less because people didn’t want such a basic feature set, and it felt like a compromise.