Apple's CEO Tim Cook said Apple grew 'strong double digits' in India

Apple chief executive Tim Cook stated the company has exceeded its expectations from the two company-owned stores in India even as the iPhone maker published its all-time highest-ever sales in the country last quarter, led by smartphones. “We continued to see strong results in emerging markets, driven by robust sales of iPhone with quarter total revenue records in India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE,” Cook told analysts in the company’s earnings call. The company grew “strong double digits” in India.

Apple’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri further said the company posted “an all-time record in India.” This boosted Apple’s sales in the Europe segment, where it accounts for sales in emerging markets like India, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. Cook further said the company’s first two retail stores in India are currently beating expectations in terms of how they're doing. “We continue to work on building out the channel and putting more investment in our direct-to-consumer offers as well,” he said.

The Apple CEO said since India is the second largest smartphone market in the world, the company “ought to be doing really well there, “And where I'm really pleased with our growth there, we're still -- we still have a very, very modest and low share in the smartphone market. And so I think that it's a huge opportunity for us. And we're putting the -- all of our energies in making that occur,” he said. As per market researcher IDC, Apple is the seventh largest smartphone brand in India in the quarter, with a 5.5% share after Vivo, Samsung, Realme, Oppo, Xiaomi, and OnePlus. Apple is ahead of mass-to-mid-segment brands like Poco, Tecno, and Infinix.

IDC said Apple’s iPhone 13 and OnePlus’ Nord CE3 Lite were the highest-shipped 5G models in India last quarter. The researcher said Apple had the highest average selling price of $929 and registered a massive 61% year-on-year growth in sales in India last quarter. The performance of Apple in India contrasts the overall smartphone market in the country, where shipments declined by 3% year-on-year in the April-June period, though grew 10% sequentially over the January-March quarter, as per IDC estimates.