The government of India on Wednesday, allowed
foreign single brand companies to sell via webstores directly, irrespective of
a brick-and-mortar store presence. Apple will start selling iPhones FIRST to
Indian consumers directly through its own online store. Over the next 3-5
months the webstore is likely to come up, it involves duplicating its global
online store template for the Indian market. As the government has also allowed
exports and contract manufacturing in the mandatory 30% local sourcing norm to
be counted over a period of five years. The US firm has also decided to set up
its iconic brick-and-mortar Apple Store in Mumbai over the next 12-18 months. The
company wants to latch this opportunity, as 35-40% of iPhone sales in the
country come from ecommerce. Online store is also a big sales driver for iPad
tablets and MacBook laptops contributing over 25%
of annual sales in India. Apple at present, has online sales partnerships with
Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm Mall in the country where Apple authorised
third-party sales of products. Apple will now start meeting norms of the local
sourcing easily since it has started assembling of iPhones in India through
contract manufacturing and has plans to expand. The export of iPhones from
India has been recently started, which will be expanded into more models and
markets. Apple is runing company-owned Apple Stores in 25 countries where web
store is also operated. However, it involves much longer time to set up the
physical Store since these stores are destination outlets that stand out for
their architecture and design which even make them tourist attractions.
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