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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Tim Cook: Developing India market a top-five priority for Apple

Tim Cook: Developing India market a top-five priority for Apple
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NewsPoster
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May 21, 2016, 06:49 PM
 
Apple CEO Tim Cook has continued his tour of India with a new television interview. Among his talking points with the show's host on India's NDTV, Cook made it clear how important the Indian market is to Apple, explaining that it is a top-five priority for the Cupertino-based company. In this latest interview, Cook also kept on point with the messages he has been reiterating throughout the week-long tour, which is that Apple is playing a long game with Asia generally, and is firmly committed to expanding its presence in the region.



Cook said that he had learnt a lot about India over the past few days. His meetings with government officials, senior execs from Indian carriers, leading iOS developers, and people from across the many Indian communities have given him insights into how Apple can maximize its opportunities in the region. Cook said Apple's brand value was considerable, and that it is looking into the different ways that Apple can tap into this with its marketing efforts in the region.



Cook said Apple is taking what he calls a "holistic" approach to India, which means learning about the country and the particular needs and expectations of the local market. According to Cook, this means establishing relationships with key stakeholders, and learning how to tailor Apple's end-to-end approach to the customer for local conditions and consumer culture. However, Cook stopped short of suggesting that Apple would look into making an iPhone specifically for the Indian market; rather, he said that the company's focus was on introducing competitive pricing tiers for its existing line-up.

Cook did not elaborate further than he already has on Apple's plans to try to introduce refurbished iPhones to the Indian market -- this could be a way that Apple could introduce the iPhone at a lower price point, without watering down what the brand stands for in terms of quality and performance. However, Cook needs to convince Indian authorities, who currently ban the practice, that it won't create unfair competition. Samsung and local handset vendors like Micromax, unsurprisingly, are opposing the proposal.

With the iPhone facing stiff competition in the highly-competitive smartphone market in China, Apple and its partners are investing heavily in the region. During the week, Apple announced a new iOS app design and development center that it is opening in the country next year, while it has emerged that Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn is looking to establish invest $10 billion in a new Indian Apple-only manufacturing facility.
( Last edited by NewsPoster; May 22, 2016 at 01:31 AM. )
     
kserman
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May 22, 2016, 01:21 PM
 
Tim with an outdated product line and no new products to sell he is always on tv talking
     
Steve Wilkinson
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May 22, 2016, 04:06 PM
 
Yea, I think Apple has traded growth by having the best products and innovation, for simple market expansion for their growth. One would think doing both would be smart, but I'm not sure Apple knows how to do the latter anymore, or more likely, even cares.
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PJL500
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May 26, 2016, 05:13 PM
 
Instead of "developing India market" how about making products that people in India cannot resist? Mr Jobs chose to innovate rather than waffling.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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May 26, 2016, 05:22 PM
 
Out of curiosity, what are you guys looking for that will serve Apple as a company in every regard that Apple isn't delivering? What will help the bottom line, what will pave the way to the future.

Note that what you and I want, doesn't always serve the company...
     
Steve Wilkinson
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May 26, 2016, 09:50 PM
 
Pretty simple for me Mike. Whatever products Apple makes (and I see no reason they have to abandon previous products to make new ones...), I want them to focus, first, on user-experience and quality. Let the sales and profits come from doing that (as it used to) rather than slick marketing strategies, fashion gimmicks, etc.

In other words, when I'm talking about the 'new' and 'old' Apple, I'm not just talking about current products or focus vs past products or focus. I'm talking about the soul of the company.
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Mike Wuerthele
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May 26, 2016, 10:43 PM
 
What's the benchmark you're using for user experience and quality, if I may ask?
     
Steve Wilkinson
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May 27, 2016, 01:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by Mike Wuerthele View Post
What's the benchmark you're using for user experience and quality, if I may ask?
I'd say mid-2000s for OSX. Although I do like some of the convenience of iCloud, App Store, integration with iOS, it has brought an equal number of problems with it. And, they don't seem to be problems that Apple is fixing. I know you guys always say that every OS release has had it's issues, which is true. But, eventually, the issues get fixed and it becomes good/stable, etc. The problem now, is that the issues aren't necessarily things Apple intends to fix... they've made UI/UX/integration decisions that have fundamentally changed/degraded the experience (along with, yes, some good things).

For iOS, up to about iOS 7. Again, they've added some great things. But, the overall user-experience isn't as good, not only in terms of how quickly older devices are being pushed out of usefulness (which ticked me off when iOS 8 hit), but also in terms of, again, UI and ease of use.

And, then more generally, what Apple keeps doing to their software. iTunes is a good example. While people have always complained about it in some ways, the UI used to make sense. Or iPhoto. Or variation in capabilities/workflows between the iOS and OS X version of apps. Or, all the issues iCloud brings into setting up and managing devices.

(ex: I had to change my iCloud email address. I did that like 6 months ago, and I'm still having related problems. Apple 'baked' the old email into places all over iOS and OSX... so some stuff works... other stuff throws dialogs wanting the password to the *old* email address with no apparent way to change it to the new one. I've had to delete apps, re-import data... all kinds of monkeying around I should have never had to do. And, I still have issues after each update, like my backups to the cloud haven't worked for almost a year, and finally started again after the last update. Or, my wife's MacBook Air wouldn't pull updates from App Store. I went through 3 levels of Apple Support, hours on the phone, lots of experimenting... before Apple stopped responding. I finally just started from scratch and merged stuff in from a backup. I don't think I've had do something like that for well over a decade... even when I managed a number of machines.)

Then there's dumb stuff like the 16GB iPhone. While I was never pleased with how Apple positioned their products in terms of RAM and sometimes storage, it was quite easy to just add more. Now that machines are sealed up, you can't do that. Yet, Apple still insists on making a low-end up-sell model for marketing reasons (UX be damned!). That's just short-sighted stupidity, IMO. Maybe it's something they've always done, but in the past, it was just an inconvenience if you hadn't thought of it ahead of time... now it's end of road for a fairly expensive device. (I even got bit when my wife bought her last MacBook Air... I wasn't paying enough attention to realize it only had 2GB of RAM. It still works, thanks to the SSD, but it *really* needs 4GB. Since it can't be upgraded... time to buy a new machine. In the past, I'd just have spent $100 or whatever and bumped up the RAM. In other words, Apple shouldn't be selling anything underpowered (even in the foreseeable future) when it can't be upgraded.
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Steve Wilkinson
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