It took Apple 15 years from when it first began promoting its iPhone in India to having a company-run retail retailer in now the world’s second greatest smartphone market, one the place it has confronted a number of enterprise challenges.
As Apple opens its first shops, here’s a timeline of its journey in India, the place the USÂ agency’s contract producers are more and more making iPhones.
August 2008: iPhone 3G made its debut in India minus the mass hysteria and winding queues that had marked its launch in the US, Europe and elements of Asia.
January 2016: Apple information an utility with India’s authorities to arrange its personal shops in India.
May 2016: Apple chief Tim Cook met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi for the primary time as the corporate appears to be like at plotting an enlargement technique.
June 2016: India relaxes its funding guidelines for international retailers, clearing means for giants equivalent to Apple and IKEA to arrange shops in the nation.
May 2017: Apple, working with contract producer Wistron, began native meeting of iPhones for the primary time in India at Bengaluru with its iPhone SE mannequin.
September 2020: Apple launched its first on-line retailer in India, coinciding with the nation’s vacation season.
October 2020: India accredited incentives underneath a federal plan to enhance home smartphone manufacturing to 16 corporations, together with high Apple suppliers.
December 2020: Contract staff on the Bengaluru manufacturing unit of Apple provider Wistron ransacked the ability after a protest towards unpaid wages. The manufacturing unit was placed on probation by Apple earlier than resuming manufacturing two months later.
December 2021: Protests erupted on the Tamil Nadu plant of Foxconn after greater than 250 ladies staff who stay in one of many firm dormitories have been handled for meals poisoning. Apple later discovered services didn’t meet required requirements and the manufacturing unit was closed for over three weeks.
December 2021: India’s competitors watchdog orders an investigation into Apple’s in-app payment system, saying it was of the preliminary view that the iPhone maker had violated sure antitrust legal guidelines.
September 2022: Apple provider Pegatron inaugurated its first plant in Tamil Nadu state to assemble iPhones.
February 2023: Apple provider Foxlink, which manufactures iPhone chargers, halted manufacturing quickly at its meeting facility in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh after an enormous hearth triggered a part of the constructing to collapse.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
