Here's Apple's Challenge in India
Last year, Apple shipped a total of 2.5 million iPhones in India, a small fraction of the 29 million smartphones that Samsung sold.
Customers wait in line for the iPhone 7 smartphone outside an Apple Inc. store in New York, U.S., on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. Apple Inc. unveiled new iPhones without headphone jacks last week, embracing a wireless future and a potential new source of accessory sales.
Photographer: John Taggart/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
In India, for the price of the latest iPhone, you could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for an entire year, and still have a bit of cash to spare.
Needless to say, at about 70,000 rupees ($1,030) for a mid-range model, the iPhone 7 is a luxury item in the country of 1.3 billion. After Apple revealed the price last year, Indians had a field day on social media. One of the most-shared posts was a (fake) picture of an owner of a brand-new iPhone with a missing kidney.