Apple is preparing to open its first actual store in India, more than 20 years after the company first entered the market through third-party sellers, according to a brief statement.
The store, called Apple BKC, is currently set to open in the Jio World Drive Mall in Mumbai, owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Apple did not specify an opening date, but wrote that the store is “coming soon.”
“Hello Mumbai,” the statement reads, with colorful signage paying homage to Mumbai’s taxi art.
The opening marks a pivotal moment for the California-based company, which has spent years attempting to assert market dominance in India. Apple previously announced it would open a store in 2021, though the plans got derailed due to COVID-19. In 2020, Apple launched an online retail store for the Indian market, but the products have been sold in the country for years through third-party sellers like Amazon and Walmart. However, the company had never opened a physical store in India until now.
According to data from Counterpoint Research, the Indian smartphone market has long been dominated by non-Apple companies. With 1.3 billion consumers, India is one of the world’s biggest tech markets, but over the past few years, Samsung and Xiaomi—the latter a Chinese manufacturer that has previously been touted as “the Apple of China”—have led the country’s market, with Apple only recently beginning to make up the distance. At the end of 2022, the iPhone 13 ranked as India’s bestselling premium smartphone, but Samsung continued to hold the highest shipment value share.
Even since 2018, Apple has been struggling to make it into the Indian market, where the average phone has cost less than Apple’s market prices. However, in recent years, the company has been ramping up manufacturing in India, with some of its iPhones being assembled by Taiwanese manufacturers Foxconn and Wistron Corp.
The move to open a physical store in India marks the company’s decision to bet big on the Indian smartphone market and underscores its desire to become more prominent and yield larger sales in the country. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has previously shared that he remains bullish about the company’s long-term prospects in India.
Still, it remains to be seen if and how much Apple can gain control of the market as it continues to attempt to assert its dominance.
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This story was originally published by ProPublica.
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