Eyes on India: Apple Bets on Cheaper iPhone 5C and Goodwill Amid Falling Rupee

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While Samsung’s riding on its Indian popularity by raising prices as the Rupee plummets, Apple is willingly talking a hit by not passing on the side-effects of a weak currency to its buyers, Bloomberg reported today.

“Apple is selling the iPhone and iPad to distributors such as Redington India Ltd. (REDI) at the same price as in 2012 even after the currency’s decline this year,” Bloomberg writers Kartikay Mehrotra & Jeanette Rodrigues report Rajesh Khetarpal, head of Redington’s strategic business unit, as saying.

This, the Cupertino-based Apple feels will give it an advantage in a country that is set to overtake the US as the second biggest smartphone market in terms of market share by 2017, as projected by US market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

Apple already sells the iPhone 4S and 4 models at almost Rs. 10,000 below the initial retail prices, a strategy that has rocketed Apple’s sales to company’s sales in India by 400 percent, the Hindu says.

The cheaper, plastic-back iPhone 5C – set to launch in a few hours in the US – is another hope at cornering the market pie in emerging markets where Android and the Windows platform pose a certain threat.

The popularity of Android has led app developers to put their energies into developing more apps for that platform, the Guardian reports. According to the writer, Android has already captured sizeable markets in emerging economies, like China where Android phones have about 90% of the market. Android has a strong following across Asia and Europe as well.

Some more number crunching by IDC: In the three months ending in June, Apple sold 31 million iPhones worldwide compared to 187 million Android phones made by the likes of Samsung, HTC and LG Electronics, according to the research firm International Data Corp. That left the iPhone with 13 percent of the global market, down from 17 percent at the same time last year. Android phones held a 79 percent share, up from 69 percent last year, according to IDC (Source: Associated Press).