Apple hopes to woo Indian buyers with new Macbooks
Apple’s customer base is growing and most of its customers are loyal, hence we are anticipating that the new Macbook will generate excitement
Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to have taken up the challenge to turn India into its most profitable market outside the US andmanywouldbelievehimashe revealed that iphone sales have goneupby50%in2016comparedto last year.
Butcanappledothesamewith its new range of Macbooks? According to IDC’S Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report, Apple has just seen a noticeable dropinshipmentsofitsmacrange, a dip that is likely to be related to the long wait for the Pro update.
Apple shipped 4.4 million PCS worldwideinthesecondquarterof 2016,comparedto4.8millioninthe second quarter of 2015 -- a drop of 8.3%. Macbook shipments were down too, from 2.1 million to 1.9 million.
Andthatisn’tjustdowntomarketforces.othercompaniesinthe top five for US and worldwide PC shipments all posted better yearon-year comparisons, and HP, Dell,lenovoandacerallsawdou- ble-digit growth in the US shipments except for Lenovo which sawasmalldipinworldwideshipments.
While HP, Dell and Asus all showedgrowthofover4%interms of shipments, Apple showed a declineof8.3%.intermsofmarket share, Lenovo leads the segment with 21.2% followed by HP, Dell, Asus and Apple.
“In India, Apple has just 3.5% marketsharewhenitcomestolaptops,” an industry source said. “Thelaunchofnewmacbookswill notaffecttheindiamarketbecause of two reasons: Firstly, Apple is a moreconsumerproductsomicrosoftalreadyhastheadvantageover it in the enterprise segment along with the fact that India is a Windows ecosystem market and secondly, the price of the new MacBooks will be a major deterrent,” the source added.
The source was hinting at the newsurfacebookandsurfacestudio launch announcements made by Microsoft on Wednesday.
However,tarunpathak,senior analystatcounterpointresearch, saysthatappleshouldfocusmore on the enterprise side to ramp up business in India. “Apple has just 2%oftheentirepcmarketinindia andinordertorampupitsbusiness it needs to focus on the enterprise side of business,” he said adding that it will face stiff competition from Microsoft.
“In terms of global shipments, theacceptanceoftheproductmatters a lot and we will have to wait and see what kind of new changes are there in the product to make it acceptabletothemarket,”another industry expert said adding that the company was expected to launch the new notebooks with new USB ports and a new OLED bar instead of the function keys.
“There are also concerns that the latest iphones also don’t come withusbtype-ccableswhichcan be a problem for latest iphone users,” he explained.
Apple declined to comment on the issue.
But, Manish Yadav, associate research manager, IDC India believes that Apple products are making a comeback in India.
“India is a growing market for high-end lifestyle devices, where most of the Apple products are positioned. Apple’s customer base is growing and most of its custom ers are loyal, hence we anticipate the new Macbook will generate excitement among experience centric consumers and revive Apple’s market share,” he said.