Apple bounces back, iPhone shipments grow in India

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India returned in Apple’s basket with strong double-digit growth in the company’s third quarter ending June 29, leading to a significant statement from CEO Tim Cook that the growth in the country has bounced back.
In an earnings call with analysts late Tuesday, Cook said that tactically, the emerging markets had a bit of a rebound in the third quarter that saw Apple Services vertical grow further.

“In fact, on a constant currency basis, we actually grew slightly in emerging markets. We still declined on a reported basis. India bounced back. During the quarter, we returned to growth there. We are very happy with that. We grew in Brazil as well,” said the Apple CEO.
The return of Apple in India comes at a time when the company is reportedly set to manufacture top-end iPhone XS and iPhone XR smartphones courtesy its supplier Foxconn in the country.
Apple in April started the assembling of iPhone 7 at its supplier Wistron’s facility in Bengaluru.
As Cook announced that iPhones generated $26 billion in revenue in the company’s third quarter — down 12 per cent from last year’s June quarter — India witnessed a 19 per cent growth (year-on-year) in shipments riding on promotional offers and discounts from the Cupertino-based giant.
Apple iPhone shipments fell 11 per cent in the quarter globally but in India, it grew 19 per cent (YoY), according to Counterpoint Research.

Cook said the retail and online stores returned to growth on a year-over-year basis in the month of June, adding that the iPhone performance in Q3 showed a significant improvement from 17 per cent (year-over-year) revenue decline in Q2.
According to Counterpoint, despite the global decline, iPhone sales trends are improving.
“One of the interesting trend hidden in the growth of Apple in India was that last year, similar quarter growth was driven by older iPhone 6 series contributing 2/5th of the sales and this time, it was iPhone XR contributing almost half,” Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research, told IANS.
Promotional offers and aggressive marketing has helped the tech giant to drive revenues in India, he added.
Apple is slowly but steadily strategising its plans to make deeper inroads in a country where over 450 million people use smartphones, and assembling iPhone 7 is another step towards gaining more ground.
This was, however, the third consecutive quarter of a decline in iPhone shipments globally. To ramp up sales, the company implemented price cuts for the iPhone XR in India and China markets.
IANS