Apple iPhone sales record 400% growth in India, Cook acknowledges country's importance

 

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook has taken a U-turn on his stance on India, saying iPhone sales in the country beat all expectations to soar 400% in the April-June quarter just a year after he famously said he loved India but felt business opportunities were much more elsewhere.

In a conference call from the firm's Cupertino headquarters, Cook acknowledged the importance of India, which outpaced Apple's growth in its core markets.

Interacting with analysts after announcing Apple's third quarter (April-June) results when it was early morning in India, Cook said, "From an iPhone point of view...we saw very strong sales in several of the emerging markets, sort of pre-pay markets. India was up over 400%; Turkey and Poland were both up over 60%. The Philippines was up about 140%...."

Apple also saw strong phone sales in several developed markets as it grew over 50% in the US, over 60% in Japan and about 50% in the UK. "So we had several regions where phone sales actually accelerated from the previous quarter," Cook said.

Cook said Apple's popular tablet iPad too reported double-digit growth in sales by unit in China, Japan, Canada, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East and India.

Apple's Senior V-P and CFO Peter Oppenheimer attributed the 20% year-on-year jump in iPhone sales to 31.2 million units during the quarter to strong performance in markets such as India. "iPhone sales were ahead of our expectations and we were particularly pleased with very strong year-over-year growth in iPhone sales in markets like the US, UK, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India, Taiwan and Singapore," he said.