Apple struggles in India after top executives quit amid slow sales

Apple’s top executives have left the company in India after the firm observed the slow sale rate. Apple’s National Sales and Distribution Chief, Rahul Jain left has left the company. Additionally, the Head of Commercial Channels along with the Head of Telecom Carriers sales, Jayant Gupta and Manish Sharma has left as well.

Apple’s struggles have largely been due to the imposition of excessive tax duties on products being imported into the country. The average price of a smartphone is $157 in India, whereas the prices of Apple products lies between $500 and $1100.

The high rates of duties being imposed on imported products make the iPhones extremely expensive for the Indian market. Apple tried to counter this by starting local production of older generations of iPhones, including the iPhone SE and iPhone 6/6s. This didn’t prove fruitful as well since Apple managed to ship merely 3.2 million phones in the first half of 2018, which means that they’re going to see a fall in revenue on a year-on-year basis.

Apple’s main competition are Android devices and a similar case can be seen in India. Overall, the Cupertino giant holds a 2% share of the Indian smartphone market. The remainder is held by Android smartphones. A research analyst at Counterpoint Research commented,”98% of the market has been warming up and becoming deeply entrenched in the Android ecosystem”. Chinese companies like Xiaomi and OnePlus have captured the Indian market successfully through their cheap phones.

After the exit of the top executives, Apple has started to restructure its sales team, according to internal sources. Question is, will the restructuring help them in gaining traction in the market or will the company still face a decline in the market?