Apple has doubled its India business: CEO Tim Cook | Economic Times

Kolkata: Apple Inc. chief executive officer Tim Cook said the iPhone maker has doubled its business in India in the last year and the company is optimistic about the future due to strong demand for its products.“During fiscal 2021, we earned nearly one-third of our revenue from emerging markets and doubled our business in India and Vietnam. We are optimistic about the future, especially as we see strong demand for our new products,” said Cook during the company’s quarterly earnings call. Apple globally follows the October-September fiscal year.Apple management further said the company has set quarterly records in every geographic segment with strong double-digit growth across the board. “Every product category and every geographic segment set a new annual revenue record and were up at least 20% over fiscal 2020,” Apple’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri said.According to the latest report by market researcher Counterpoint Technology Market Research, Apple was the highest growing smartphone brand in India during the July-September quarter with 212% year-on-year growth and led the premium smartphone market (handsets priced above Rs 30,000) with a 44% share.Apple also maintained its leading position in the Indian ultra-premium segment (handsets priced above Rs 45,000) with a 74% share. Strong demand for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 11 were the major factors in Apple’s growth. Apple became the top 5G smartphone brand in the premium segment for the first time, Counterpoint said.Cook, however, said global supplies remain a challenge for Apple on back of very high demand. He said for the September quarter, Apple had about $6 billion in supply constraints globally and it affected iPhone, iPad and Mac.“One was the chip shortages that you’ve heard a lot about from many different companies throughout the industry. And the second was Covid-related manufacturing disruptions in Southeast Asia. The second of those, the Covid disruptions, have improved materially across October to where we currently are. And so, for this quarter, we think that the primary cause of supply-chain-related shortages will be the chip shortage,” said Cook.He said it is affecting the company when demand is very robust. “And so, part of this is that the demand also is very strong. But we believe that by the time we finish the quarter that the constraints will be larger than the $6 billion that we experienced in Q4 (September quarter),” said Cook.Apple in the last year has globally grown the business by 33% or $91 billion, reaching nearly $366 billion of revenue with record-level performance across the board.