The opening of an Apple Store in India is a significant cultural event, akin to the memorable first outlets of McDonald's, Starbucks, and Domino's Pizza in various countries. Like these renowned global institutions, the inauguration of an Apple Store generates considerable enthusiasm.
Thousands of people queuing up, some as early as last evening who camped all night to be among the first few to enter the Mumbai Apple BKC store, and they were welcomed by none other than Tim Cook himself.
Cook, in a previous conference call, had said that India is slowly becoming an important market for them, while in the overall scheme of things, India accounts for a little under 2 percent of revenue.
However, reports suggest that last year the revenues from India grew by 50 percent for Apple. So, the growth runway that India offers is massive. And this is in addition to the fact that a lot of the phones are now being produced and manufactured in India itself.
A cultural moment
Everyone was excited, and everyone was dancing right outside the BKC store here in Mumbai.
In its design, it is not very different from its global counterparts, but is localised in a way — the stones were procured from Jaipur, the ceiling was made of timber procured from Delhi and assembled by hand, and the music that played inside had a distinct Indian flavour to it. So it had a lot of colour with the standard global great Apple experience. Everyone was extremely excited.
It will be interesting to observe how Apple performs in India, particularly in the premium market segment, and whether their sales growth continues at its current frenzied rate.