A Decade of Apple iPhones in India

Apple is all set to launch iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X tonight. The launch of iPhone X will mark 10 years of the device’s launch, which took place in January 2007. Apple iPhones’ journey in the India market started off in the year 2008, when the shipments started pouring in from the third quarter of 2008.

Till the year 2011, Apple shipments were almost negligible. In 2011, on the back of iPhone 4 and 4S, as per data from CyberMedia Research, the company recorded robust shipments.

However, it was only since 2013 onwards, when Apple’s shipments started moving up with the onset of 3G services. In 2013, the year when 3G services were launched in the India market, the shipments were registered at 0.7 million, followed by 1.2 million in 2014, 1.9 million in 2015, 2.9 million in 2016.

The data indicates that any new technology brings with it some sort of disruption in devices' shipments number too and therefore, with the noise around 4G today, the coming of 4G would yield well for iPhone 8 , iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X.

The year 2016, which was the year of 4G services in the country, Apple’s shipments touched almost 3 million, about 50% growth over 2015.

“With 4G coming in a big way, all the launches would yield results for Apple, but at the same time, the company should focus on promoting its latest models pan-India. As per our latest Mobilytiks data, Apple iPhone 5S is the No 1 premium Smartphone in India across all the states on the cumulative installations basis as of March 2017. The latest from Apple, iPhone 7 is ranked at No 4 in some of the states. So, the move should be to promote the latest releases in different states,” opines Faisal Kawoosa, General Manager, Research & Consulting, CyberMedia Research.

According to Mobilytiks, various versions of iPhone fill up the top 5 Premium category Smartphones in the states of Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, indicating that iPhone is not a metro affair only in India.

In the year 2016, iPhone 5S was the top selling product (with shipments at 1.1 mn), followed by iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.

In India,  the price for all the upcoming models would be priced between INR 76,000-85,000.  The phones will come embedded with 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch LCD display and will come in Black, Silver, Blush Gold and Gold colours.

Finally, we want to wish Apple luck for its upcoming launch and expect more spark in the India market as it completes 10 years of iPhones.