NEW DELHI: Call it the growing love of Indians for luxury, but Apple has reaped a bumper harvest on the trend as its two company-owned stores – that were launched by global CEO Tim Cook in April last year with much fanfare – have scored big.
Sale from the two stores – at BKC in Mumbai and Select City Mall in Delhi – has scored a revenue of over Rs 600 crore in the first full year of operation, making it perhaps one of the fastest scale-ups for any type of consumer retail operation in the country, sources told TOI.
The number was achieved even when Apple has a list of premium reseller channel in the country, while also being retailed through thousands of multi-brand outlets across cities. Also, Apple sells products from its own (company-run) online platform, even as other popular ecommerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon also do the same.
“The growth is unprecedented, and this strong number is perhaps the reason that has prompted Apple to recently announce opening of four more company-owned stores in India,” the sources said. The company said it will open new outlets in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR region, Pune, apart from a second one in Mumbai.
The company’s overall sales in India have been growing strongly as it also increases its manufacturing focus here, and is understood to have crossed over Rs 65,000 crore (domestic) in the previous fiscal, growing by 33% year-on-year.
Speaking about the company-owned stores business, the sources said around 60% of the revenue has come from Delhi, even though the size of the outlet is smaller.
The Apple stores, which are a regular feature across most of the developed countries, enable the company to showcase its products, their features and use cases more elaborately with a much richer customer experience.
Apple Mumbai store has over 100 employees who collectively who cater to a diverse set of audience and speak over 20 languages. The Delhi store has more than 70 highly skilled retail team members.
Sources said that Apple expects numbers to remain strong with growing adoption of not only its flagship iPhone smartphone, but even the watch, Macbook and AirPods.