So no Tiffany Stores in India? No Ralph Loren? No Coach? No Starbucks? No single brand outlet stores? Very strange rules.
India is a big producer of coffee beans, so yes there is starbucks and they source their beans from india. A lot of the clothing, including stuff available in the US, is actually made in india and bangladesh. So, all the clothing brands are present.
Most of the chinese, korean, japanese electronics brands (Sony/LG/Samsung/Phillips/Hitachi/Sansui etc.) have single stores in india. So, sourcing 30% locally must not be as big a problem as it is being made out to be. Most of these companies (microsoft/google/samsung/IBM/HP etc.) atleast have software development centers here, so that must contribute some part to the local sourcing too.
These rules exist since Indian economy started a transition from a protected-socialist economy to a capitalist one pretty late (1991). Such drastic transition needed to be slow, and local industry needed to be given time and space to try and compete. Many industries have regularly been freed every 2-3 years, and single-brand retail will be too one day when the time is right.
India is really pissing on Apple, expecially after the major financial commitments that Tim announced last week.
Moving forward.... Since the rule applies to "single-brand" stores, maybe Apple could modify its retail strategy in India to increase the emphasis on 3rd-party accessories. Those accessories are not Apple-branded products. Potentially Apple could create a retail model (just for India) that heavily includes Apple products, but also includes enough focus on the non-Apple products to fit legitimately in the multi-brand category.
That is a rather jaundiced viewpoint. Apple have asked to dump used phones on the Indian market, and India has rightly said no to the proposal, which I think most countries would do that had local manufacturers of competing products who were actually investing in the local economy.
The store ruling is similar. They have a rule that benefits the local economy that existed before Apple made their application. Why should India make an exception for Apple?
A $10M investment in a facility working on maps is hardly major, and it isn't actually a case of Apple establishing an actual direct presence in India, their map venture is in reality more a case of them engaging a local Indian firm to do work for them. If the proposed investment by Foxconn goes ahead, that certainly would be a lot more significant, but once again, Apple itself would still not have a direct presence in India, which I don't blame them for in the least, given the high-handedness of the Indian Judiciary and Tax department. I don't think Tim Cook wants to be subpoenaed to appear in an Indian court, every time some minor local supplier thinks they have a grievance, which is what happened to the chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Kun-hee. I wonder if the arrest warrant is still outstanding.
Absolute BS - this is nothing more than protectionism and restraint of trade. Meanwhile India ships their IT workers here by the boatload, workers who are actually illegally taking IT jobs here in the US, while Indian corporations have also set up huge outsourcing call centers and IT shops in India that are taking 10's of thousands of our jobs. So based on your misguided statements, what we should do is throw all these workers out of the US and rehire our own, and at the same time make it illegal for US companies to use Indian outsourcing companies.
Lastly, your statement that Apple asked to "dump" used iPhones on the Indian market is just plain stupid. Apple asked to be able to sell previously owned, high value, advanced computing devices at a price point that would benefit their citizens. A population that has limited high speed internet and computing access that would now be able to better afford more advanced computing power as the country rolls out LTE.
Sad. India has the academic and intellectual chops to compete at the global scale in just about any modern marketplace yet they are constantly held back by corrupt and self serving politicians. Why anyone with half a brain would remain a prisoner in their regressive society is beyond explanation.
India is a big producer of coffee beans, so yes there is starbucks and they source their beans from india. A lot of the clothing, including stuff available in the US, is actually made in india and bangladesh. So, all the clothing brands are present.
Most of the chinese, korean, japanese electronics brands (Sony/LG/Samsung/Phillips/Hitachi/Sansui etc.) have single stores in india. So, sourcing 30% locally must not be as big a problem as it is being made out to be. Most of these companies (microsoft/google/samsung/IBM/HP etc.) atleast have software development centers here, so that must contribute some part to the local sourcing too.
These rules exist since Indian economy started a transition from a protected-socialist economy to a capitalist one pretty late (1991). Such drastic transition needed to be slow, and local industry needed to be given time and space to try and compete. Many industries have regularly been freed every 2-3 years, and single-brand retail will be too one day when the time is right.
Don't try to tell me that the transition from a protected socialist economy to a capitalist one "needed to be slow." That's complete nonsense. The only people who "needed" it to be slow are the fat-cat government bureaucrats and politicians who line their pockets with cash. There's a lot of people who stand to lose out if the populace is able to stand on its feet. Those people want large swaths of the population to remain in poverty. The protected socialist economy was based on early India's asinine ideas of spreading the wealth around. All it did was create a bloated, corrupt government bureaucracy rotten to its core that starved the populace and continues to do so to this day. The great result of the noble ideas of Nehru was the "License Raj", a complex maze of dozens of government agencies who needed to be satisfied before one could do any kind of business in India, and even then, the government would tell you exactly how many goods you could produce and how much you could charge. My grandfather waited seven years for a Bajaj scooter. The reason was that some government officer thought it was a good idea to put a cap on how many scooters Bajaj could produce, despite the fact that the demand was twice the limit. That officer probably had a powerful buddy who was hoping to sell some scooters for a handsome profit and this officer wanted to keep his buddy happy. People think the American government is inefficient and corrupt. The Indian government redefines those terms. It is rotten to its core.
India transitioned to a capitalist economy because it had no choice, not because it wanted to give local industry time and space to try to compete. Those local industries produced substandard goods but for years, they got away with it because the government gave them a monopoly. Customers had no choice but to buy from them, so those industries happily sold third-rate trash. Finally though, the government couldn't pay its bills. India had about three weeks of foreign exchange left. It was forced to mortgage its entire gold reserves to get a loan from the IMF. In Indian culture, mortgaging one's gold is a big, big no-no and the incompetent fat cats in the Indian government brought India to that stage.
The idea that the Indian government is trying to make the transition to capitalism gradual is utterly asinine. The politicians and bureaucrats are just trying to protect their jobs. They wouldn't be able to supplement their income with a steady supply of bribes if it got too easy to do business.
Well there are countries like russia who did not transition slowly. We all know how their economies are doing, and how much hardship their people had to suffer.
Being an ass and having extreme views for the sake of having them is not a qualification. Your grandfather waited 7 years for a bajaj scooter, that means you must be a young idiot that they seem to produce a lot these days. You know nothing about those days except reading some crap opinion on some website. I had a bajaj scooter that my dad got after waiting for 7 years, and i have seen the transition with my own eyes.
Do you know how many industries closed shop and how many jobs were lost in the 90s? Have you even seen proper poverty? Regarding the IMF loan, don't lecture me, I know all about that.
BTW, many of the companies that existed before 1991 have prospered and competed in the international market thanks to the pragmatic approaches taken.
That is a rather jaundiced viewpoint. Apple have asked to dump used phones on the Indian market, and India has rightly said no to the proposal, which I think most countries would do that had local manufacturers of competing products who were actually investing in the local economy.
The store ruling is similar. They have a rule that benefits the local economy that existed before Apple made their application. Why should India make an exception for Apple?
A $10M investment in a facility working on maps is hardly major, and it isn't actually a case of Apple establishing an actual direct presence in India, their map venture is in reality more a case of them engaging a local Indian firm to do work for them. If the proposed investment by Foxconn goes ahead, that certainly would be a lot more significant, but once again, Apple itself would still not have a direct presence in India, which I don't blame them for in the least, given the high-handedness of the Indian Judiciary and Tax department. I don't think Tim Cook wants to be subpoenaed to appear in an Indian court, every time some minor local supplier thinks they have a grievance, which is what happened to the chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Kun-hee. I wonder if the arrest warrant is still outstanding.
Absolute BS - this is nothing more than protectionism and restraint of trade. Meanwhile India ships their IT workers here by the boatload, workers who are actually illegally taking IT jobs here in the US, while Indian corporations have also set up huge outsourcing call centers and IT shops in India that are taking 10's of thousands of our jobs. So based on your misguided statements, what we should do is throw all these workers out of the US and rehire our own, and at the same time make it illegal for US companies to use Indian outsourcing companies.
Lastly, your statement that Apple asked to "dump" used iPhones on the Indian market is just plain stupid. Apple asked to be able to sell previously owned, high value, advanced computing devices at a price point that would benefit their citizens. A population that has limited high speed internet and computing access that would now be able to better afford more advanced computing power as the country rolls out LTE.
You already do. There are a boatload of restrictions on IT engineers from india in US. So, then US is also following protectionist policies I guess? So, why is that better than protectionist policies of other countries?
Lipstick on a pig doesn't turn it into cinderilla. You can argue any which way, but used phones are electronic junk. period. you can keep your e-waste to yourself and dispose it in your landfills, thank you very much.
It would appear China and India are actually looking out for their citizens when it comes to jobs. Why can’t the U.S. government do the same for its citizens? Every time a proposal is made to protect or return jobs to the U.S. it is shot down as bad for the economy or as potentially starting a trade war. So jobs continue to move out of the country. Even U.S. tech companies hire educated foreign workers on H-1Bs mainly because they are cheaper. Let’s face it, there are lots of people who are not cut out for college. Those people used to be able to graduate from high school and get a decent paying job on the local stove factory assembly line. Now they get welfare checks or work for the minimum wage and are a burden on their fellow citizens and a drain on the economy. What happens when robots take over what menial jobs are left?
Yeah simple solutions to this problem do not allow India to send their people here to get educated and then take US jobs. The US need to start looking out for the US since these counties definitely are looking out for their best interests first.
Just so you know those who come to the US on H1B get paid about the same as their US counter parts. Even if they did not, then eventually do, because Indians will get together with their US Indian counter parts and share what they make and then demand to be paid the same.
I worked in a High Tech company which hire H1B because they were supposedly lower cost, well that did not last long. I was in management and use to listen to how other managers complained about the H1B from Indian coming to them and demanding a higher pay since they know others in the company were making more. In one example we had a US born and highly education Software architect who happen to be Indian, got in a room with a number of H1B and they all shared their salaries. Needless to say the guy with 15 yrs experience was making a good 6 figure income compared to the H1B who were just coders and only a yr or 2 of experience were making 50K or 60K and began demanding the same 6 figure income. In their mind they all wrote software so they should be all paid the same. My advise at the time to the manager was to fire the software architect for share company confidential information which was his salary and to fires the H1B and as the law requires ship them all back to India. Well they did not do this and continued for months to have all kinds of issue with the H1B's until they gave them a raise.
I will also tell you Indian workers generally have no loyalty to the company they work for, They are only loyal to their pay check. If someone offers them a nickel more any hour or even a higher job title in their mind, they will jump ship. Hell my wife works with a company who hires nothing buy Indians, and the owner told her when he hires someone they come in as Janitor level 1 then 6 months later they are Janitor level 2 all them way to level 10, then they go to the next job title level 1 through 10. As long as he can give them a new title every 6 months they say and he gives them a nickel an hour raise each time. When you ask this guy his title he says he the Chief Janitor since he spends most of his day cleaning up everyone else is mess, and he has it on his Business card too. Oh it is a technology company too.
Don't try to tell me that the transition from a protected socialist economy to a capitalist one "needed to be slow." That's complete nonsense. The only people who "needed" it to be slow are the fat-cat government bureaucrats and politicians who line their pockets with cash. There's a lot of people who stand to lose out if the populace is able to stand on its feet. Those people want large swaths of the population to remain in poverty. The protected socialist economy was based on early India's asinine ideas of spreading the wealth around. All it did was create a bloated, corrupt government bureaucracy rotten to its core that starved the populace and continues to do so to this day. The great result of the noble ideas of Nehru was the "License Raj", a complex maze of dozens of government agencies who needed to be satisfied before one could do any kind of business in India, and even then, the government would tell you exactly how many goods you could produce and how much you could charge. My grandfather waited seven years for a Bajaj scooter. The reason was that some government officer thought it was a good idea to put a cap on how many scooters Bajaj could produce, despite the fact that the demand was twice the limit. That officer probably had a powerful buddy who was hoping to sell some scooters for a handsome profit and this officer wanted to keep his buddy happy. People think the American government is inefficient and corrupt. The Indian government redefines those terms. It is rotten to its core.
India transitioned to a capitalist economy because it had no choice, not because it wanted to give local industry time and space to try to compete. Those local industries produced substandard goods but for years, they got away with it because the government gave them a monopoly. Customers had no choice but to buy from them, so those industries happily sold third-rate trash. Finally though, the government couldn't pay its bills. India had about three weeks of foreign exchange left. It was forced to mortgage its entire gold reserves to get a loan from the IMF. In Indian culture, mortgaging one's gold is a big, big no-no and the incompetent fat cats in the Indian government brought India to that stage.
The idea that the Indian government is trying to make the transition to capitalism gradual is utterly asinine. The politicians and bureaucrats are just trying to protect their jobs. They wouldn't be able to supplement their income with a steady supply of bribes if it got too easy to do business.
Well there are countries like russia who did not transition slowly. We all know how their economies are doing, and how much hardship their people had to suffer.
Being an ass and having extreme views for the sake of having them is not a qualification. Your grandfather waited 7 years for a bajaj scooter, that means you must be a young idiot that they seem to produce a lot these days. You know nothing about those days except reading some crap opinion on some website. I had a bajaj scooter that my dad got after waiting for 7 years, and i have seen the transition with my own eyes.
Do you know how many industries closed shop and how many jobs were lost in the 90s? Have you even seen proper poverty? Regarding the IMF loan, don't lecture me, I know all about that.
BTW, many of the companies that existed before 1991 have prospered and competed in the international market thanks to the pragmatic approaches taken.
I am not taking extreme views for the sake of having them and also, I know something about those days not from "some crap opinion on a website" but from my parents and relatives who lived during that time. And yes, I have seen proper poverty, but it's not India's economic liberalization that caused it.
Soviet Union had an economic system like that of India, except that at least India was a democratic government while the Soviet Union was a dictatorship. In the Soviet Union, there was no private industry of any kind. It was even more extreme than India. The reason Russia isn't doing well and the reason its people had to suffer is not due to an abrupt transition to capitalism. People were already facing extreme hardship. Again, my grandfather waited seven years for a Bajaj scooter, but at least it was just a scooter. In the Soviet Union, people had to wait to get even the basics. The Soviet Union was already a putrid, corrupt mess.
The people who graduated from IITs in the 1970s 80s have gone on to become stalwarts in their field. Many IITians in academia have made seminal contributions in their fields. IITians have become CEOs of the world's top corporations. Raghuram Rajan, an IIT-Delhi gold medalist went on to become a professor at University of Chicago but went back to India to serve as RBI Governor but he is an exception rather than the rule for IIT grads of that time period. If India's economic policies weren't so stifling back then, how many of those IITians who emigrated would have stayed back in India?
From an Indian news article today writing on Apple issues:
"Xiaomi which had earlier sought waiving the 30% local sourcing norm has now written to the department, saying it does not need the waiver as it has started manufacturing in India. However, the proposal is to be sent to the finance ministry, he added.
Another Chinese mobile company LeEco has also sought a waiver of the 30% sourcing norm."
Comments
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2016/05/18Apple-Announces-New-iOS-App-Design-and-Development-Accelerator-in-Bengaluru.html ;
http://www.amazon.com/review/RF5HOJJS1XS8M/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0033VHL7S&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=679255011&store=apparel#wasThisHelpful
Lastly, your statement that Apple asked to "dump" used iPhones on the Indian market is just plain stupid. Apple asked to be able to sell previously owned, high value, advanced computing devices at a price point that would benefit their citizens. A population that has limited high speed internet and computing access that would now be able to better afford more advanced computing power as the country rolls out LTE.
Being an ass and having extreme views for the sake of having them is not a qualification. Your grandfather waited 7 years for a bajaj scooter, that means you must be a young idiot that they seem to produce a lot these days. You know nothing about those days except reading some crap opinion on some website. I had a bajaj scooter that my dad got after waiting for 7 years, and i have seen the transition with my own eyes.
Do you know how many industries closed shop and how many jobs were lost in the 90s? Have you even seen proper poverty? Regarding the IMF loan, don't lecture me, I know all about that.
BTW, many of the companies that existed before 1991 have prospered and competed in the international market thanks to the pragmatic approaches taken.
Lipstick on a pig doesn't turn it into cinderilla. You can argue any which way, but used phones are electronic junk. period. you can keep your e-waste to yourself and dispose it in your landfills, thank you very much.
Yeah simple solutions to this problem do not allow India to send their people here to get educated and then take US jobs. The US need to start looking out for the US since these counties definitely are looking out for their best interests first.
Just so you know those who come to the US on H1B get paid about the same as their US counter parts. Even if they did not, then eventually do, because Indians will get together with their US Indian counter parts and share what they make and then demand to be paid the same.
I worked in a High Tech company which hire H1B because they were supposedly lower cost, well that did not last long. I was in management and use to listen to how other managers complained about the H1B from Indian coming to them and demanding a higher pay since they know others in the company were making more. In one example we had a US born and highly education Software architect who happen to be Indian, got in a room with a number of H1B and they all shared their salaries. Needless to say the guy with 15 yrs experience was making a good 6 figure income compared to the H1B who were just coders and only a yr or 2 of experience were making 50K or 60K and began demanding the same 6 figure income. In their mind they all wrote software so they should be all paid the same. My advise at the time to the manager was to fire the software architect for share company confidential information which was his salary and to fires the H1B and as the law requires ship them all back to India. Well they did not do this and continued for months to have all kinds of issue with the H1B's until they gave them a raise.
I will also tell you Indian workers generally have no loyalty to the company they work for, They are only loyal to their pay check. If someone offers them a nickel more any hour or even a higher job title in their mind, they will jump ship. Hell my wife works with a company who hires nothing buy Indians, and the owner told her when he hires someone they come in as Janitor level 1 then 6 months later they are Janitor level 2 all them way to level 10, then they go to the next job title level 1 through 10. As long as he can give them a new title every 6 months they say and he gives them a nickel an hour raise each time. When you ask this guy his title he says he the Chief Janitor since he spends most of his day cleaning up everyone else is mess, and he has it on his Business card too. Oh it is a technology company too.
Soviet Union had an economic system like that of India, except that at least India was a democratic government while the Soviet Union was a dictatorship. In the Soviet Union, there was no private industry of any kind. It was even more extreme than India. The reason Russia isn't doing well and the reason its people had to suffer is not due to an abrupt transition to capitalism. People were already facing extreme hardship. Again, my grandfather waited seven years for a Bajaj scooter, but at least it was just a scooter. In the Soviet Union, people had to wait to get even the basics. The Soviet Union was already a putrid, corrupt mess.
The people who graduated from IITs in the 1970s 80s have gone on to become stalwarts in their field. Many IITians in academia have made seminal contributions in their fields. IITians have become CEOs of the world's top corporations. Raghuram Rajan, an IIT-Delhi gold medalist went on to become a professor at University of Chicago but went back to India to serve as RBI Governor but he is an exception rather than the rule for IIT grads of that time period. If India's economic policies weren't so stifling back then, how many of those IITians who emigrated would have stayed back in India?
"Xiaomi which had earlier sought waiving the 30% local sourcing norm has now written to the department, saying it does not need the waiver as it has started manufacturing in India. However, the proposal is to be sent to the finance ministry, he added.
Another Chinese mobile company LeEco has also sought a waiver of the 30% sourcing norm."
http://www.livemint.com/Companies/lDn53REhqvhqGoIxs9MgwJ/Apples-proposal-to-sell-refurbished-iPhones-in-India-reject.html (This report is also linked in a different AI article today)