Apple plans to sell 12 lakh iPhones in India in October-December quarter

NEW DELHI: Apple is gearing up for a blockbuster opening of new iPhone devices in India as it targets to sell 12 lakh devices in the October-December quarter, nearly equivalent to its total sales for whole of last year. The new devices are expected to contribute around 60 per cent of total sales in the quarter. The full-year sales target has been scaled up to nearly 35 lakh devices, a number seen only in some of the company's biggest markets.

The company is also lining up a massive marketing and promotional budget, which is upwards of Rs 300 crore in October-December quarter. "This is big, considering that the spend in the whole of last year was around Rs 115-120 crore," top sources in the company told TOI.

The new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S-Plus will hit the stores on October 16 and Apple expects a frenzy for the devices that saw sales of over 1.3 crore units within three days of their launch in the US. The devices in India are expected to be priced from Rs 60,000 onwards, though the exact price will be known at the opening.

"For Apple, it will be unprecedented numbers in India, and the company has asked its top distributors to go all out and sell aggressively , as this is the high-potential festive period. The target of 12 lakh devices in just one quarter displays the company's aggression and confidence on the Indian market," sources added. The festive demand and craze for the latest iPhone de vices will be booster factors and Apple is likely to announ ce attractive buy-back sche mes and other campaigns.

Apple recently unshack led its India strategy and did away with the practice of assigning regions and exclusive sales channels to distributors. The move which led to cut-throat com petition among its various sa les partners, coincided with the entry of Softbank-cont rolled global distributor Brightstar into India that has -within six months of star ting operations -moved ahe ad of Ingram Micro and Re dington to become the brand's biggest seller.

"Brightstar, which is led by former Redington top ex ecutive Puneet Narang, has been leading the charge for the company and now contributes nearly 40 per cent of Apple's sales. It is expected to play a major role in the sales of new iPhone devices," sources said.

The aggressive push by Apple comes at a time when the company has decided to move out of the fringes and go big in India. Apple plans to open 500 iOS stores in India and the expansion includes entry into smaller towns and cities such as Amritsar, Pathankot, Moga, Coimbatore, Trichy , Nagpur and Nasik.

For the new cities, Apple is planning smaller stores, which can range between 300600 sq ft against the over 2,000 sq ft size of existing stores in bigger cities.