Apple

It has 10 official Apple Stores in India at places namely, Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, jaipur, Chennai etc. It has major tie-ups with IT solutions firms in India as its product dealers such as Future Technologies, Photonics Enterprise etc[ Link- http://www.sadwelkar.com/AppledealersIndia.htm] The other mode of sale is ONLINE. Apples Distribution Channel-

B2B Customers-

B2B CUSTOMERS

SME
Added Value Reseller On-line store

Education
Added Value Reseller On-line store Direct sales force

Enterprise & Gov.

Direct sales force On-line store Offer solicitation

B2C CustomersB2C CUSTOMERS

Stores (274)

Resellers (3000) High service level

Large distribution (320)

On-line store (36 Countries)

Give high visibility

More capillary distribution

Drives huge volumes of traffic

Absence of differentiation avoided through corners

Visibility on web & worldwide

Mass customization

Apple jumped in the retail business due toLow exposure Bad purchasing experience Customers not able to perceive the value

For India, the retailers with which they have tied-up are Vijay Sales, Croma, Future Bazaar etc. They have HCL as its partner in India for its iPods. Since solution business provides B2B and B2C opportunities, it has caused them profitability. They also have Vishal Video & Appliances [P] Ltd. as there distributors for small outlets in India. They have been here since 1983 for getting many reputed consumer brands across boundaries. [Link- http://www.vishalvideo.in/partner.htm] It has Blackberry, Canon, Art DNox etc. As well. For Apple iPads & iPhone, it has BSNL, Vodafone and Airtel as its 3G partners. This has been done in order to make the product reach in 3 days [Link- http://www.thinkdigit.com/Laptops-PCs/Applepartners-BSNL-to-bring-3G-enabled-iPads_6004.html]

Market Situation
Tablets: The competitors in this segment are Sony, Blackberry Playbook, Motorola Xoom, Samsung galaxy Tab, Asus Eee Pad, Dell Streak and T-Mobiles G-Slate. On a global scenario, Apple iPad accounts for 97 percent of all tablet device Internet traffic in the U.S. and 89 percent of tablet traffic globally. It also claims nearly 22 percent of all non-PC Internet traffic in the U.S. Tablets running Google's Android OS, by comparison, make up just 2 percent of U.S. online tablet usage and 0.6 percent of non-PC traffic.

As per the CyberMedia Research recent figures, 158,000 tablets were sold between Oct 2010 and June 2011 (3 quarters). That translates to 17,000 to 18,000 tablets being sold every month. Of which Samsung sold 46% of the tablets, Blackberry surprisingly sold 21% of the tablets and Apple sold 18% of the tablets. The rest of the tablet makers grab the remaining 15% of the share -that includes Olive Telecom which introduced Indias first tablet. Some facts:

Samsung share dropped from 84.7% to 46% : Now between the two reports there is a difference of 4 months. The latest report includes an extra month of October in 2010 and an extra quarter in 2011. Samsung sold 71995 tablets in the period of Nov 2010 to March 2011. And it sold 72680 tablets in the period of October 2010 to June 2011. Which means in 4 months October 2010 and between April 2011-June 2011, Samsung sold just 685 tablets. It is even more surprising because Samsung started its ad campaign for its Galaxy Tabs in this quarter. Blackberry didnt figure in the first study. Whatever sales it made has to be come from the quarter of Apr 2011 to June 2011. A total of 33180 Blackberry Playbooks were sold in this period. Its a good number, but when compared with iPad sales, Playbook numbers are unsurprisingly high. Apple sold 5015 iPads in the period of Nov 2010 to March 2011. Assuming there are no sales in October 2010, Apple sold 23425 tablets in the period of April 2011 to June 2011, the same period in which Blackberry sold 33180 Playbooks. If we overlap the numbers from the both the reports, even if Olive didnt sell one Olivepad in the last quarter, it will still have 4.4% market share based on its sales in Nov 2010 to March 2011.

Despite the recent spate of tablets flooding Indian markets, a mere 250,000 tablets will be sold during this year. This estimate is contrary to the earlier estimate of 1 million tablets to be sold in India. Why others are not working as well

SONY - iPad is still top of the charts when it comes to design, but Sony definitely beats the more humdrum Samsung Galaxy design. In several aspects of pure functionality, there are still issues with the Sony Tablet. For starters, it is sluggish compared to the iPad (and even though comparisons are often odious, in this case it is not because the iPad still has close to 90 per cent of the tablet market) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Sony's two biggest competitors. This is surprising because speed, one would have guessed, is possibly the first thing a product designer would worry about.

SmartPhones:

Smartphone sales now account for 17% of all global mobile handset sales, and are expected to rise from 472 million in 2011 to 1 billion by 2016. Global Perspective:

Apple sold 6.1 million original iPhone units over five quarters. The company sold 3.8 million iPhone 3G units in the second quarter of fiscal 2009, ending March 2009, and 12.6 million 3G and 3GS combined, totaling 33.75 million iPhones sold to date (Q4 2009). Sales in Q4 2008 surpassed temporarily those of RIMs BlackBerry sales of 5.2 million units, which made Apple briefly the third largest mobile phone manufacturer by revenue, after Nokia and Samsung.

INDIAN Perspective: Smartphone shipments in India are slated to rise by 70% by 2015

Forecast of 2012 is that approx. 160 million units would be shipped. There are 602 million active users already. India is the 2nd largest market for e Competitors: Samsung has 41% of the Indian smart phone segment and is aiming at 60% by the end of 2012. It has 16 smart phone models in the market. (Feb 2012)

HTC reaped triple-digit growth for both the quarter and for the year, second only to Samsung. Driving its success were its increased brand awareness, market positioning, and a series of devices that have resonated well with users and carriers alike. RIM market share in India is of 15% which is ahead as compared to the leading smartphone manufacturer Apple. RIMs Blackberry Instant Messaging is the cause for its popularity.

Music Player:
Global: The music market share for the Apple iPod has been revealed at 78% with 300 million pieces sold. Apple's iTunes online music store is said to be behind the stunning success of the iPod's music player Indian: Industry estimates suggest that the MP3 player market is valued at Rs 380 crore, with Apple enjoying some 30-35% share followed by Philips with 15% share. Competitors: Philips is now gearing up to take the same route to emerge trumps in the Indian portable music player market. Philips is hopeful its present strategy will enable it to double its 39% market share in the Indian audio market over the next 2-3 years. It plans to launch its online forum and software Philips Songbird that it feels can help to compete against the iPod.

Reasons Of Failure in India:

LinksiPad & iPhone [http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/11/analysts-apple-and-iphone-partnersblowing-it-in-india.ars] [http://www.hungrynfoolish.com/2011/10/04/why-apple-iphone-is-still-lagging-in-the-indiansmartphone-market/]