Aggressive Competition Prompts, Drop in iPhone Sales

India is perhaps one of the exceptional geographies, where iphone sales are coming down. During the first three months of 2013, Apple is experiencing a sharp decline in its sales in India. Most importantly, this decline in sales is seen after the launch of the iPhone 5.

So what has gone wrong here? Nothing say the experts and they also claim that this is the result of this aggressive marketing campaigns being engaged by other smartphone vendors, including the easy EMI options being thrown in front of the consumers.

Also, history of Apple as it that the Cupertino, US based organization has never really gone aggressive on the marketing side and always quite firmly believed in its cult nature of the product lines. Experts close to the industry also say that this doctrine may be true but the company has to engage with its customers and potential customers in a better manner. This becomes tremendously important for competitive markets like India.

Additionally, the pricing of iPhone is another big issue here. Even, though the company has gone through a sustained market campaign, advertising discount schemes and many other options in India, the next generation smartphones are seen too expensive.

As per the IDC data, iPhone sales have gone down especially after the robust sales in response to the marketing campaign and financing schemes. According to reports by IDC, Apple has sold around 120,000 iPhones in India between January and March 2012 which became 230,000 in the October-December quarter of last year.

On account of their aggressive marketing campaigns focused around easy EMI schemes, Apple in India is facing tough competition from South Koran electronics major Samsung as well as home grown local brands such as Karbonn and Micromax.

And in addition to affecting its own sales, Apple’s slowdown is also impacting its large national distributors such as Redington, they are also feeling the heat coming from sales of competition. Sales of iPhones make up around 7% of Redington’s revenue at present.

On the other hand, Apple is also expected to announce the launch of its not so expensive smartpone in India sometime soon and if this is done with better and more aggressive marketing fervor, that should set the score straight.