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BENGALURU (Reuters) – Apple's iPhone is set to hit by a quarter in India's fourth quarter, putting them on the road for the first full-year fall, and industry research firm.
The Cupertino, California company's struggle to break through with India's 1.3 billion consumers swung more sharply into focus this week after Apple blamed a disappointing set of sales forecasts on a handful of big emerging markets.
Chief Executive Tim Cook said after publishing third quarter results that were flat in India in the fourth quarter, which includes a month-long festive season culminating this week in Diwali – a bumper period for electronics sales.
Neil Shah, research director at HongKong-based Counterpoint Research, said on Saturday, his channel checks to 700,000 to 800,000 units, down from about a million a year ago.
For the whole of 2018, Apple was set to sell about 2 million phones – a drop of about a million from last year, he said.
"Sales are set to drop for the first time in four years," said Shah. If you look at Q3 – it was 900k last year and this (year) is almost 450k.
"I have gone to costlier and the features are not that compelling." The install base of android has grown vastly, the new customer base (for Apple) is not coming.
Cook on Thursday called the company's problems in India.
Shah said that, while more than half of the phones, this year, they are more expensive than they are. Apple's Indian revenue should still be flat or slightly higher than a year ago.
(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattercharjee, editing by Patrick Graham)
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