Indians Aren't Buying iPhones Because Of OnePlus, Apart From Being Just Too Expensive

Last year, Apple took a giant tumble in sales across the world. Most of that dip was thanks to China and India, which have boatloads of cheaper Android competitors.

And here in India specifically, OnePlus is the brand that rang Apple's death knell.

Reuters

According to Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research, iPhone sales in India fell almost 50 percent this past year, with only 1.7 million devices making it off the racks compared to 3.2 million in 2017. Of course, part of the reason here is possibly that iPhone's are more expensive than ever. But another exacerbating factor, Counterpoint associate director Tarun Pathak told Quartz, is that OnePlus has emerged as a strong competitor.

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The Chinese brand has played it incredibly smart since its entry into the market in 2014. By starting out with an incredibly cheap flagship level device, and then slowly scaling up the price but keeping it within reason, the company has built up a strong fan following. In addition, it's devices are pretty damn good, news of which has spread by word of mouth better than any advertising could. So when you have the option of an iPhone for around Rs 1 lakh and a flagship level Android (already the more popular OS in India) for half that price, most would take the latter.

Particularly, Apple lost market share in the Rs 28,000 and up bracket, while OnePlus meanwhile shipped more devices than ever before in 2018. The Shenzhen brand now hold more than 37 percent of the premium smartphone market share in India.

Gwyn D'Mello

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Apple couldn't compete in that price segment, and most iPhone fans don't necessarily want to buy and older device, particularly if it seems outdated compared to a OnePlus in the same price range. So not only were the previously strong sales of previous generation Apple phones flagging, the new iPhones weren't taking off either because they were too expensive.

CEO Tim Cook talked about this in Apple's investor briefing in January (though he blamed customers for the dip in sales) and the company's stock plummeted as a result. At the very least, hopefully it all means Apple is now taking cognizance of the issue at hand and making efforts to price their devices lower in India, possibly by manufacturing locally more.