Apple putting lot of energy in India to tap opportunities, says Cook

New York: Apple Inc is putting a lot of energy in India with an aim to launch all its initiatives, including retail, in the country where it has an “extremely low” overall market share, the technology giant’s CEO Tim Cook has said.
India, the third largest smartphone market in the world, has huge opportunities for Apple, Cook said. “… We have extremely low share in that market overall,” Cook said during Apple’s second quarter 2018 earnings call yesterday. He said the company is “putting a lot of energy” in India and working with the carriers in that market, and “they’re investing enormously on the LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks.”
Cook noted that the infrastructure in India has come “quite a ways” since Apple began to put a lot of energy in the Indian market “because of their leadership and so forth.”
Apple’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Luca Maestri said during the conference call that Apple’s Mac set a new March quarter revenue record, including new records in both the Americas and Greater China.
“We sold 4.1 million Macs, generating year-over-year growth in many emerging markets including Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and India,” Maestri said.
Cook said in India, Apple set a new first-half record. “So we continue to put great energy there and try to – our objective over time is to go in there with all of our different initiatives from retail and everything else. And so we’re working toward those things,” he said. Describing India as a “huge market”, Cook said many people will be moving into the middle class over time in the country, referring to the tremendous consumer opportunity that presents to global companies.
On China, Cook said he believes it is a phenomenal country with lots of opportunity both from a market and an app developer point of view. Apple has almost two million application developers in China that are writing apps for iOS and the App Store, and “they’re doing unbelievably creative work and innovative work.
So we look at China holistically, not only as a market.” “But my own personal view of China is that it’s a great market…and feel very bullish on the opportunity and the environment there,” he said. Cook was asked if he feels the iPhone market is saturated and not much room is left for growth even as potential exists in emerging markets like India.
“I don’t buy the view that market’s saturated. I don’t see that from a market point of view or – and certainly not from an iPhone point of view,” he said. Cook stressed that the smartphone market is like the best market for a consumer product company in the history of the world. “It’s a terrific market, and we’re very happy to be a part of it,” he said.