Why the iPhone would bomb in India
Written by Rajesh Kumar on August 22, 2008 – 10:25 pmI am being a little audacious in making an emphatic pronouncement on something that has got an amazing hype in India in last few days. But somehow all the hype does not generate any great confidence in likelihood of Apple iPhone being any great success in India. Here’s why I feel so:
- Of course, the price, it is obscene(NDTV’s Vikram Chandra felt it was only ‘slightly expensive’ though!).
- SMS is important for Indian mobile users, unlike the US where it is possible to come across many business executives who do not use SMS. The iPhone is not crafted for heavy SMS usage.
- Yes, I know iPhone is not a phone for business executives, but then that’s another reason in favour of my argument.
- Far superior cameras are available in phones in 15 K range.
- We do not love buying digital music so much. If we want, it is generally available,you know what I mean. iTunes what?
- Operator bundling militates against our nature. In a city like Chennai and most part of India, we have three to four GSM service providers. It makes us feel lot of freedom and surrendering that choice does not go with our nature, it is all in the mind.
- iPhone versus iPhone- Bunty can buy the iPhone in Amrika, get it unlocked on the corner-shop and use it in Patiala. Hello, Bunty is already using it- Why should he pay so much more to buy from India? And he can use it with any operator.Can Apple handle this channel conflict without relooking at the price?
- Timing wise, August is not the time Indians are in great mood to spend big monies. That happens to be Diwali and around.That’s when the best launches tend to work.
- Apple is otherwise pretty much unknown commodity in India. Apple?
- 3G? No comments.
Did not surprise me that there are no pictures of any queues outside stores last night. BTW, do you agree with the above?
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14 Comments »
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I so agree with your comments about iPhone in India. I am in US now but I grew up in India, have family and friends there. and I can relate with the situation there.
With so much being talked about target marketing and product customization, wonder what was Apple thinking !!
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 am
[...] Rajesh Kumar predicts that iPhone will bomb in India! [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:35 am
agreed.
Probably their strategy is “let those crazy people who have enough money buy it first at a high price, let us look into other aspects later”
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
The price is at least negotiable if they offered unlimited data. Which they don’t read about my view on the internet features of iphone in india here.
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August 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Yes, I agree emphatically. I’m a rare species in India, a Mac user. I’ve been an almost exclusive Mac user for a little more than 3 years. You could classify me as a die-hard Mac addict. But I’m not going to buy the exorbitantly priced iPhone now.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:18 am
well Rajesh whether or not we think that the iPhone launch has bombed in India – Apple has already won. It has achieved what it set out to. 7 million iPhones are already sold ( 6 million of the 1st version plus 1 million of this new one). They are starting to upset Nokias hold on the so important segment of internet browsing devices.And mind you this is the future! As for the comments on pricing in India- I feel this decision was more taken by Vodafone and Airtel rather than Apple. And yes as u said- they will come to their senses soon ( down 10K atleast very soon). I am considering buying the ipod Touch which comes for Rs.15000 only. Its slimmer and lighter than the iphone and will work well with wifi at my home.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Parul and Nalin, thanks for the comment.
Mridula, pingback is really appreciated.
Shrindhi, that’s called skimming.
Prashanth, sorry but I couldn’t get your point.
Vijay, thanks for your comment- I notice you have a nice blog.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
The iphone also does not have the ability to record or email videos, which you would expect to have at that price. It’s not really good value for money at its price point, and Indians are great value maximizers.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
latest news: Vodafone already slashed iPhone prices by 2000 Rs
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 pm
But people are crazy for the iphone here..every time I pass by the Apple store, there’s a queue..looks like its launched everyday!!And also this particular store was robbed recently.
Also you are right about the sms..cellphone mean SMS in India..all fingers are busy and I am also out of touch of the shortcut language which people also use in e-mails.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:30 am
[...] all the pre-launch hype, as people find more reasons not to buy iPhone than to buy one, it looks like Vodafone is going slow on their iPhone marketing efforts. What do [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Very much agree! Phone dont have no keypad, it dont even have handwriting recognition , how do you suppose i do the typing? I love my w950i [Go Symbian
], if there was a phone I ‘d trade it for, it would either be the big brother w960i (a bit too pricey) or a blackberry 
I still have to check out the new nokia touch phone… mm
November 19th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Nokia 5800 would be a better choice for iphone. and ya, even i predicted the iphone to flop in india. And am sure it did…
December 5th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I got one from the US in June, got it unlocked and used it for a few weeks till its call outgoing feature crashed and could not be rebooted. Foolishly I assumed that all the messaging problems the earlier versions of the phone had would have been correcetd, I bought one again in India for 36,000 rupees and to my disgust found this was worse than the first version. After 3 days I sold it for 25,000 and moved back to my blackberry.