Inspite of India being one of the prominent markets for Apple, the company doesn’t have a direct retail store in India. This status may change soon as
Apple officials on Tuesday met a senior official of Ministry of Commerce, Government of India to discuss the way forward for opening stores in India.
The bone of connection is that Apple wants the government to waive off the mandatory requirement of sourcing components locally in the initial stages for setting up a retail store in India.
The meeting, which was chaired by Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India Secretary, revolved around new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy and changes in mandatory domestic sourcing norms for single-brand retail brought in earlier this year according to PTI.
Earlier, this year in June, the government toned down its FDI rules and allowed 100% FDI in single-brand retail trading in the country. The government gave a three-year exemption from local sourcing with an extension of up to five years if it’s proven that the products of ‘state-of-the-art’ and ‘cutting-edge’ technology.
Apple was supposed to be the biggest beneficiary from this decision and a door was opened for the company to set up retail stores in India.
For Apple, India is one of the major markets as its iPhone sales went up 51 percent year-on-year, at a time when its global sales went down according to research firm FactSet Street Account.
In May this year, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, had visited India and met Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, to discuss Apple’s strategy for India which included setting up manufacturing plan and retail stores.