Buoyed by iPhone wins, Apple set for big India PC market play

Having secured a strong foothold in India’s intensely competitive smartphone market, Apple is poised for an aggressive play in the personal computer (PC) space, with revenue from its range of Mac PCs likely to nearly double this year, say experts.

Sales of Mac PCs are expected to grow more than 14% in 2024, rebounding from a decline last year, thanks to their growing acceptance in enterprise and educational segments, despite the premium pricing of about 1 lakh per device, the experts say.

They added that the sales increase may help Apple clock $1.1-1.2 billion in revenue from Mac PCs in India this calendar year, a sharp rise from $600-700 million last year.


Analysts believe recent glitches with Microsoft Windows-powered computers are also expected to lead many enterprises to diversify their IT systems with Apple PCs despite the high cost involved.

Apple didn’t respond to ET’s emailed queries.

“The IT infrastructure collapse this week due to Crowdstrike, affecting Microsoft Windows systems could be something which could work out well for Apple Mac’s adoption in enterprise from IT diversification point of view,” Neil Shah, vice president of Counterpoint Research told ET.

Analysts say Apple is likely to target big enterprises for its PCs. The company wants to get into Fortune 500 companies which are currently dominated by HP, Dell and Lenovo to become a strong player in the enterprise segment.

As per IDC, Indian sales of Macs grew by over 10% in 2023 for large enterprises, despite the combined commercial sales of Macs witnessing a 13% slump due to poor demand from small and medium businesses. To be sure, India’s total PC market declined by 6.6% in 2023.

“Apple has been focusing on increasing its presence in the enterprise segment since 2020-21 and they have managed to achieve that to some extent though the base is small. Some of the enterprises are trying to attract fresh talent by providing MacBook and if they succeed in doing that, there are chances of Apple gaining bigger share in coming years,” said Bharath Shenoy, research manager, IDC India.

Apple’s share in India’s PC market has remained largely unchanged at 4-6% for the past 3-4 years, a figure which is likely to rise to at least 7% by December-end, the analysts say.

Apple recently launched an India-specific ad campaign for its Mac PCs, indicating the focus and strong growth potential.

Shah noted that Apple has traditionally focused on consumer or prosumer (professional user) markets and didn’t have separate SKUs (stock keeping units) for the enterprise segment like Dell, Lenovo or HP. The company has since changed its strategy, embracing more enterprise developers and partners to cater to this market due to growing proliferation of iPhones and iPads in enterprise via BYOD (bring your own device) or tablet deployments.

“This drew the flywheel effect for Macs; however, with switch to M series Apple Silicon - Apple has been able to draw out good compute and battery performance which solves key pain points for enterprise users,” Shah said.

Apple currently has partnerships with enterprises and educational institutions like Wipro, Zoho, SRM Institute of Technology, and Galgotias University.

Apple chief financial officer Luca Maestri, during the company’s Q1 quarter earnings recently, had highlighted Zoho offering its 15,000-plus global employees a choice of devices, with 80% of the workforce using iPhones for work, and nearly two-thirds of them choosing Mac as their primary computer.