On the countrymeters.info statistics website, the number on the India Population clock has reached 1.413 billion.
▲ The ticking indian population clock. Image courtesy of countrymeters.info
This figure is simply updated in real time based on India's birth and mortality rates, and the figure of 1.413 billion may not be accurate, but it still does not stop India's progress towards the world's most populous country.
The rising population has brought economic growth to India with a "demographic dividend", while also nurturing a market that may have strong purchasing power.
▲ Xiaomi, which has been very successful in the Indian market. Image credit: News18
Such a potential market has naturally become a must for mobile phone manufacturers. A few years ago, when domestic mobile phones have gone abroad, the first markets to conquer are India and Southeast Asia.
iPhones can't be sold in India
With the passage of time, many manufacturers have found the key to victory in the Indian market. According to IDC data, among the top five mobile phone manufacturers in India in 2021, domestic brands occupy four seats, almost eating 70% of the market share.
▲ The five giants of the Indian mobile phone market. Image credit: IDC
This is a bit similar to the Chinese mobile phone market, but also a little different, similarly, orange blue green is the head of the market, the difference is that the iPhone lost to India, ranked among others.
According to CyberMedia Research, Apple shipped only 5.4 million units in 2021, accounting for 4.4% of the market share. As a comparison, Xiaomi shipped more than 40 million units in the same year.
▲ Image courtesy of Fortune
Apple's situation is not that it does not value the Indian market, as early as 2016, when Tim Cook arrived in India, he said that Apple would stay in the country for "a thousand years".
Subsequently, in 2018, a number of executives of Apple's Sales Team in India have left one after another, because of the sluggish sales of iPhone in India.
▲ On September 23, 2020, Apple launched an online store in India. Image courtesy of Apple
Since then, Apple has reorganized its sales team and launched an online store in India in September 2020, while also planning to open India's first Apple Store in Mumbai's bustling shopping street.
Also CyberMedia Research, which is quite optimistic about Apple's future performance in India, predicts that its market share will increase to 5.5% in 2022, and the shipment volume will reach 7.5 million units.
▲ iPhone SE 2022.
Part of the reason for this prediction is the release of the iPhone SE 2022 and the hot sale of the iPhone 13 in India; the other part is that the high-end mobile phone market in India is growing violently, in other words, the Indian middle class is increasing.
At the same time, India's high-end mobile phone market is also growing rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of 90% in 2021. One in every eight smartphones sold in 2021 will be high-end.
The printed iPhone 13 is coming
Not only the layout of the Apple Store, a few days ago, Apple officially announced that it has officially begun to produce iPhone 13 in India, which is the fourth iPhone assembled and produced in India after the production of iPhone SE in 2017.
▲ Image from: techspot.com
Also foundry by Hon Hai Foxconn, the factory is located near Chennai, India, and the printed iPhone 13 is not exported for the time being, but is only sold to India. At the same time, Pegatron also plans to start assembling the iPhone 12 in a factory in India in the near future, and it will also temporarily produce and sell it itself.
▲ iPhone 13.
In this regard, Apple, which had previously lost to India, is preparing to start a new round of charge.
The Indian mobile phone market has great potential, but the purchasing power is slightly insufficient, and the price of the iPhone has always been high, which is actually a big reason for Apple's poor performance before.
▲ iPhone 12.
In 2020, Apple pushed the price of the iPhone 12 down to 34999 Indian rupees (about 3000 yuan), with additional discounts. At the same time, the retail price of the iPhone SE 2020 was also driven down to 27999 Indian Rupees (about 2300 yuan).
The real discount made the iPhone 12 the best-selling iPhone in India. And the iPhone 13 is repeating this process and momentum. According to BusinessToday's interview with Mahesh Telcom dealers in Mumbai, the iPhone 13 is growing in popularity, mainly because dealers have given additional preferential policies.
▲ Image courtesy of Economictimes
It seems that if you want to occupy the market, you have to rely on price reductions.
The same is the demographic dividend, and the lower manufacturing population cost is also a significant advantage. It is also based on this that in the past few years, Samsung and Foxconn electronics manufacturers have also begun to build factories in India, which naturally includes Chinese manufacturers who have achieved results in India.
Counting the recent Apple, the cheap labor that moved factories to India is one of the reasons. Naturally, it is not excluded that India's self-produced and self-sold iPhone 13 will have special sales offers to promote sales.
Grinding import taxes with new incentive schemes
However, there is actually a policy reason for changing to local assembly production.
Narendra Modi launched a "Make in India" initiative in September 2014 with one of its goals to make India a global smartphone and PC manufacturing hub.
In addition to incentivizing local Indian companies, it has also gradually increased and expanded the import tax on the consumer electronics industry and even the entire industry, from 10% to 20%. Recently, Modi has targeted some mobile phone parts (such as camera modules), up 2.5% from 0%.
Previously, Apple had been negotiating with the Indian government to try to lobby for a plan to delay the increase in import taxes on parts, but the Indian government was not active and did not open a backdoor for Apple.
▲ Vivo India plant SMT production line
However, under the "Made in India" plan, some mobile phone manufacturers in India are still having a hard time, and under the crushing pressure of several manufacturers in China's orange, blue and green, they are almost bankrupt and delisted.
Ironically, after years of Making in India, the big fish on the market are still foreign manufacturers. The larger foundries are also foreign Samsung and Foxconn, Indian manufacturing is more like a basic assembly work, and some parts still need to be imported on a large scale.
▲ Samsung India factory. Image courtesy of: Samsung
The Indian government's adjustment of import taxes this time must also be based on the current unhealthy status quo. Playing the tariff stick, naturally will also give the mouth sugar to eat.
India has approved a $10 billion incentive program to attract large semiconductor manufacturers to use India as a production base and to try to establish India as a global hub for chip design and manufacturing.
According to Bloomberg, India's Minister of Information and Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw believes that after India launches this incentive policy, there will be 10 to 12 semiconductor manufacturers in India in the future.
Including Apple's foundry Hon Hai, Israel Tower Semiconductor has said it may set up a semiconductor factory in India.
Apple has previously funded Wistron to open a factory in India, and the Indian production of the iPhone 13 may also value a new round of incentive plans, which can negotiate with the Indian government to solve the problem of additional parts import taxes.
▲ Apple CEO Tim Cook and Indian Prime Minister Modi. Image courtesy of Indianexpress
The Wall Street Journal has reported that during Cook's visit to India, he had thought that "India is different from other countries, we need to treat it differently." This is actually similar to "learning from the Chinese market to add dual SIM dual standby on the iPhone".
However, in the process of exploring the Indian market, Apple still hopes to gain a lot of policy inclinations from India on the grounds of opening factories to increase jobs, but this has not moved the Indian government.
The Indian government still wants to expand the localization of production, not just assembly. The production of the iPhone 13 may mean that Apple has once again "compromised" with the special market of India, and as for whether it can continue to expand its market share with the help of the iPhone 13, it may ultimately be the simplest and most direct element, that is, how many benefits can be brought.