India a key market for Apple: Tim Cook

Bengaluru, 3 November India is a focus market for Apple as the global phone maker is increasingly betting big in the South Asian market.

"We see an extraordinary market. A lot of people are moving into the middle class, distribution is getting better. We put two retail stores there, they are doing better than we anticipated," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the company's earnings conference call.

Apple posted 1 per cent sequential decline in its revenue at $89.5 billion during the fourth quarter ended September on Thursday.

While Apple drew $43.81billionrevenue from iPhone, $22.3bn of revenue came from its services during this period.

On India, Cook said the company was seeing a lot of headroom for growth in the country since the it has a low market share in a large market.

In the July-September quarter, Apple saw its highest-ever quarterly shipments in India, crossing 2.5 million units, registering a 34 percent growth on year-on-year basis.

Apple is one of the prominent players in India's ultra-premium smartphone market that starts from Rs 45,000 and above. However, its overall share in the country's smartphone market remains low. According to reports, Apple had about 4.5 percent market share last year, which is likely to reach 6 per cent in 2023.

Apple has opened two exclusive stores in India as the company wants to tap the rising income level of people in the country.

Meanwhile, Apple is making India one of the major manufacturing centres as the iPhone maker looks at diversifying its production bases from China.

According to industry estimates, iPhone exports touched around $5 billion-$5.5 billion from India in FY23, accounting for nearly half of the country's mobile phone exports.