(The article first appeared in Forbes on December 22, 2023)
Shifting the spotlight on India, Apple finally opened the doors for Indian consumers with its first retail stores in the financial and national capitals. But Apple CEO Tim Cook’s visit in April also brought a lot of cheer because of plans to diversify the supply chain away from China. It took a pandemic and geopolitical unrest for the Cupertino-based company to realise the need to ramp up production in other parts of the world. Apple dominates the luxury phone market in India, holding 63 percent of the market share in this category. But it holds only 6 percent of the market share in the overall smartphone segment…