- Saturday, 28 November 2009
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We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to - Somerset Maugham
Apple struggles with Iphone in India
FRUIT-THEMED toy maker Apple is having a few problems flogging its Iphone gadget in India.
While there are shedloads of people in India, no one is interested in buying the gadget. Analysts estimate that just 11,000 have been sold in the whole sub-continent.
To put that in perspective, the downtown San Francisco Apple store would sell about 11,000 Iphones in a week.
According to LiveMint.com even Apple didn’t think the gizmo would do well in India. It only allocated 50,000 Iphones to that market in the first place.
Of more than 120 million mobile phones sold in India each year, around six million are of the smartphone variety, and Nokia owns the market with between 60 per cent and 70 per cent market share.
The price of the Iphone is not the problem. Shedloads of other smartphones are selling well in India for more dosh. It seems that Apple and its carrier partners Bharti Airtel and Vodafone didn't promote the Iphone as aggressively as was done in other countries.
Promotion of phones in India is a complicated business and it seems that Apple and its chums could not be bothered putting the effort in.
After all, it is difficult to bring a new religion to a country where there hundreds of other gods which are much better targeted for the local market. Some of the gods create the world by having sex, but everyone knows that Apple religious nuts abstain from sex because they cannot get girls to sleep with them. µ
L’Inq
CNET
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The iPhone is a piece of junk and a rip off. The Indians have some common sense if they're not buying it.
Iphone was widely awaited in india and was poised to break all records but due to very high price, it didnt go down well with indian cellphone users. In india people use lot of smsing, this feature was almost non existant in 3g iphone launched in inda.

Before launch, it was available in grey markets for 1\3 of the price and users can get it easily unlocked.so now it doesnt make sense tto pay so much of premium for a phone which doesnt fulfill users basic expectations.
Seems as if Apple are missing a trick by not having a dedicated discrete exclusive sex facility on/in their Operating Systems portfolio. I suppose it is so hard to get the right sort of staff to pioneer the exe.content which makes all the difference between the usual old hat pornography and the NEUKlearer Red Blooded Erotography.
They took a hasty decission to hook with Airtel and Vodafone. Both do not have 3G, well, not yet in India and you offer 3G as a special criteria. Secondly, both the networks are known for their vampire nature. We do remember their charges before the entry of reliance and tata into this field. Apple could have made a killing if these handsets were sold in general market or if they have opened their own outlets without comitting on the networks and ofcourse with a sensible pricetag, which can match with other places. Now iphone is a flop and looks funny. I dont think that the market is repairable in India unless they come with something fabulous next version.
I know a lot of people who would be more than happy to buy the iphone if only if it were cheaper. Selling something here for 800$ that costs 200$ in the US is ridiculous. Very few fall for such greed. If they want to win consumer, prices have to be slashed.
Whoever wrote this article seriously lacks any knowledge abt India..............
people here prefer good phones but at a certain price...........
no1 wuld shell out 800$ USD for a mobile which costs less than 200$ to make....n moreover doesnt even offer features like mess forwarding, sharing files on bluetooth, etc,,,,,,,
phones wit much better features like 5 megapixel cams n other innovative screens etc from htc,samsung, lg sell her in d range of 400-600$ USD............!!!

why d hell wuld we pay so much more for somethng of such less value..........!!!

n yeah btw we do get the whole HTC, Nokia, Lg, Samsung lineup without the headache of carriers before u guyz in d us even get to lay ur hands on them...........lol.............!!!!
Hi Nick,

My mother-tongue is not English. I hope you can speak better English and clarify what exactly you mean by this English you have written with your wobbly fingers:
Please note: best communication skill is the ability to communicate the way you want to be understood.
Seasons' Greetings,
Suresh

quote:
"After all, it is difficult to bring a new religion to a country where there hundreds of other gods which are much better targeted for the local market. Some of the gods create the world by having sex, but everyone knows that Apple religious nuts abstain from sex because they cannot get girls to sleep with them."
unquote
Firstly 1US$ = INR 49 (almost 50). 

Next in the US it costs US$ 199 = INR 9751

but in india they want INR 31000 a complete rip off. it should have been cheaper here since the volume could have been 5-10 times of US. even if it was INR 9990 it would have sold like hot cakes

INDIANS ARE NOT FOOLS TO BUY SOMETHING AT >3X THE PRICE AND WITHOUT HAVING A 3G NETWORK IN PLACE
Indians do love the iPhone, but lack of 3G and being tied to operators are few things that dont go well with the market, Grey market has been selling unlocked iphones smuggled from cheaper sources since the original iPhone launch.
at launch it was an ungodly 55,000 rs (1000$+) at bharti/airtel
My cousin got one through the black market @ 25,000rs. So i honestly believe it wasn't just the marketing but also the price...im not paying for 4 iPhones...
i'm not a mac fanboy and i dont really like their attitude either... but i think u should stop hurling joke insults at them that are opposite from the truth.

from my own personal experience and from what i gather from the web in general... mac users are more likely to get laid than hardcore pc users (ok let's tweak this setting here, fix that driver there, configure the graphic card properly, is the ram the bottleneck? ETC)... heck my ex girlfriend who is a sex-bomb is a mac convert (maybe that's why she's my EX lol).
Badly written and misinformed. The iPhone still costs nearly 650 USD in India after which Airtel gouges you with its data plans and get this, THEY DONT HAVE 3G! Also if Americans think AT&T sucks they have to experience Airtel's network and customer care. There are few Indians rich or stupid enough (or both) to pay almost six times the true price for a phone, no matter how great it is.
And what was the author smoking when he wrote the last paragraph? He needs a copy editor and a severe caning.
What a badly written article. Go back to school and find out a little about how to write.