Apple’s India sales increase 17% to $1.8 billion in 2016-17
BENGALURU: Apple Inc, the maker of iphones, is now within touching distance of crossing $2 billion in sales from India, although the world’s most valuable technology firm faced significant headwinds late last year because of the impact of demonetisation, which slowed down the pace of its growth in the country.
According to documents posted with the Registrar of Companies on Tuesday, Apple India Pvt Ltd posted sales of ₹11,619 crore ($1.8 billion) for the year ended March 2017, compared with ₹9,937 crore in the year-ago period—which translates to a 17% growth in a country, which Apple globally has termed as one of its fastest growing markets.
In the preceding 12 months ended March 2016, Apple India had reported a growth of 53%.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
Apple did not disclose a reason for the slowdown in the pace of growth in India, although experts tracking Apple attributed it to two reasons.
Firstly, the government’s decision to ban large currency notes late last year had a significant impact on the sales of Apple and other competitors like Samsung. Consumer spending plummeted and shoppers largely stayed away from buying high-value items such as smartphones. Online retailers such as Flipkart and Amazon India had also witnessed a slowdown in the sale of smartphones late last year.
Secondly, the large base effect seems to be catching up with Apple in India—while the company rapidly reached its first billion dollars of sales in the country, generating the next few billion dollars of sales will prove to be trickier for the company in a price-conscious country.
There may have been a third reason for Apple’s modest growth in 2016-17—according to Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Research, the mix of older generation smartphones such as the 4S and 5S models may have contributed to a fall in the average selling prices, and thus a fall in the rate of growth.
Two Apple executives, who declined to be identified, also pointed out that while Apple posted a lukewarm 17% growth in 2016-17, the company has generated an additional $1 billion of revenue since the year ended March 2015, when it first crossed the $1-billion mark in India.
Apple counts India as one of its most important markets globally and has launched a slew of initiatives in the country over the past two years, including production and manufacturing of iphones.