Apple's India Strategy And The Mobile Wars

Apple customers are a segmented group and in India these could be the upmarket guys or say folks who come under the topmost tax bracket.

- Lalit S Kathpalia

Apple’s India strategy is in the news. There are recent news items which mentioned of Apple’s new strategy for India being selling used refurbished phones in India. This immediately was struck down by the Indian government and it did get a lot of flak back from the Indian consumer.

At the same time there is a lot of discourse in newspapers and other press fora about Apple’s products and strategy. Apple traditionally has been a premium product provider in all markets that it operates. While Apple wants to be a premium brand a lot of analysts feel that Apple should be selling to masses. Being a premium brand also means that you would be priced higher. In this context let me quote what Steve Jobs once said: “Apple doesn’t make overpriced products. We simply don’t make cheap ones”. Apple wants to be the BMW, Mercedes-Benz in phones what these brands are in cars. Not everyone buys a BMW, Mercedes-Benz in India unlike the Maruti, Tata etc. simply because these brands BMW, Mercedes-Benz are primarily aspirational, upmarket or premium. Using this analogy Apple has always been an aspirational, upmarket premium brand. Now the business model or strategy for Apple is not volumes but to be selling to a niche audience at a premium price which the niche audience can afford. In order to understand why Apple prefers a niche audience or a select group of customers, let us go back to Apple’s history so as to understand.