Technology
Mumbai - Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G is doing well in the US market but apparently it has failed to find buyers in India, the world's fastest growing and second largest mobile market.
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Apple had launched the iPhone way back in August amid much fanfare through mobile operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar with people queuing up in front of the retail outlets since midnight in their bid to be one of the first buyers of the touchscreen smartphone. However, within weeks, the message was clear: iPhone has no takers.
According to industry estimates, both the telecom majors have failed to sell less than 1500 iPhones during the first week of launch and one of the impediments is its high cost price - the 8GB version costs Rs.31,000 while the 16GB one costs Rs.36,100. Other factors include low-key advertising, marketing and distribution campaign.
"Unlike in the US where the iPhone costs $299 or less, in India it costs 3-4 times more," said Anand Bhargava, analyst (telecom), Technocom Solutions.
"In the US and Europe, as the iPhones come bundled with subscription plans, the mobile operators can push down the prices," Bhargava said. "In India too, Airtel and Vodafone are selling the iPhone with lock-in clauses that discourage the customer from migrating to other plans or operators. However, the prices are still too high."
Realizing the looming danger of losing customers, Airtel and Vodafone were quick to offer easy financing scheme for credit card holders of various banks and threw in freebies like year-long free SMSes and data download, but it was too little too late. The damage had been done. Apple could not sell even 12,000 iPhones by the end of October.
Don't expect the expected from Dibakar Banerjee.
A top U.S. official on Monday urged India and other large emerging economies to ...
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3rd, 2009
11:28pm
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