Apple hits India sales record as country cuts import duty

AppleInsider

India has reduced its import duty on selected smartphone components, while new research says in 2023, Apple sold more iPhone in the country than ever.

Mumbai, India

India has become of increasing importance to Apple as it aims to cut its dependence on China for manufacturing. It's also long been a producer of the iPhone for sale in India itself, because of import costs.

According to Reuters, India's finance ministry has announced a cut in those import duty fees for a number of components now used in the local manufacture of smartphones. The cut is from 15% to 10% and, amongst others, applies to battery covers, camera lenses, and the GSM antenna.

At the same time, the country has reduced import duty to zero for what are described as inputs used to manufacture the components within India. So instead of using higher fees to encourage local production, the government is offering incentives to manufacture components in India.

The news comes as figures for India's smartphone market across 2023 have been announced by Counterpoint Research.

Overall, sales of smartphones were flat in 2023, compared to the previous year, at 152 million units. Samsung took the top spot at 18% of all smartphone sales.

Apple did not make the top five overall, but it did make a new sales record in the premium market.

"Apple's focus on India is also aiding the trend [to premium smartphones], with the brand surpassing the 10-million-unit mark in shipments and capturing the top position in revenue in a calendar year for the first time, propelled by robust demand for both its latest and older iPhones," said Counterpoint's Shilpi Jain.

"The opening of own retail stores and increasing focus on LFR (large-format retail) through regular promotions contributed to increased offline shipments," continued Jain. "Besides, higher trade-in values presented an appealing proposition for consumers to transition to iOS."



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danox

India can replace the EU? In time.... Hmm

humanplease

This is great!, however there is absolutely no RETURN or even no exchange at all. you can buy and soon after you buy and change your mind and may be wanna different color or different product or whatever, you can not return or exchange, all sales are final. 

chasm

Apple sold more than 10M iPhones in India, while Samsung sold 15x as many. AND YET Apple took home the most money of any of its rivals.

I think this tells you a lot about what level of “smartphone” Samsung is mostly selling in India.

Bart Y

chasm said:

Apple sold more than 10M iPhones in India, while Samsung sold 15x as many. AND YET Apple took home the most money of any of its rivals.

I think this tells you a lot about what level of “smartphone” Samsung is mostly selling in India.

No, that’s not quite right.  Apple sold more than 10M.  If the total India smartphone sales for the year was 152M, that’s about 6.6% minimum share.  At an average price of about $800, well  under the worldwide average of $895, that’s about $8B in revenues.

Samsung had a 18% share so sold about 152M X 18% = 27.36M units or roughly 2.74X what Apple sold.  If we assume Samsung made less money, say 10% less than Apple, $7.2B /27.36M  = average sales price of $263.  Since most of Samsung’s sales are the Mid and low price range A series, this ASP isn’t surprising.  The worldwide average price of a Samsung smartphone, all models sold, is $81.6B total 2023 revenue, calculated from recent Q4 end of year Samsung earnings report (Mobile MX division combines all smartphones, tablets, wearables all in one revenue lump) divided by about 225.5M = about $362 worldwide.  You can see less expensive Samsung smartphones dominate sales there, as do the Xiaomi, OPPO and Transsion smartphones.

so even though Apple sells less than 7% of total India units, it probably takes about 25-27% of total India smartphone revenues, and likely about at least 75-80% of India smartphone profits given the razor thin profits at the low end of the market.