Apple is taking a beating in India, the world's third-largest smartphone market

Apple is taking a beating in India, the world's third-largest smartphone market.

As per information from Strategy Analytics, Apple delivered only 800,000 iPhones in India in the second quarter of 2016. That is genuinely commonplace of its late execution on the planet's third biggest smartphone market, yet at the same time down compared with the same quarter a year ago, when it transported 1.2 million handsets.

India is supposed to buy some 139 million smartphones this year, but the majority of these will be Android devices costing less than $150. The same data for the current quarter shows Google's operating system capturing 97 percent of the market, and it's just not clear what, if anything, Apple can do to change this state of affairs.

The unrealistic obstruction at the company is the price. India is maybe the most bright smartphone market on the planet, growing 29.5 percent from 2015 to 2016, yet the standard offering cost for handsets stays under $70. Apple's least expensive iPhone is more than quadruple that.

Apple has proven time and time again: It doesn't like selling cheap iPhones.

Making a less expensive iPhone is the obvious reaction to this issue, however as has been confirmed consistently, Apple doesn't do cheap. It jumps at the chance to keep its margins fat - in spite of the fact that it focuses on that high costs are an impression of its commitment to quality, not profit, and according to Bloomberg's Tim Culpan, if the Apple began offering low-cost iPhones in one market, that cost could get to be standardized. Less expensive iPhones may be normal in different markets where cell phone entrance is low and there's potential for development, butt this would throttle Apple's benefits before they've even had the opportunity to develop.

The company does have other options, including selling refurbished handsets (something that the government has so far blocked), cutting costs by making smartphones locally (which Chinese firm Lenovo has been trying), and subsidizing handsets through carriers. In these last two cases, though, Apple runs into problems concerning distribution, as smartphones in India tend to be sold off-contract, without subsidies, and through a large number of small retailers.

That doesn't mean Apple doesn't hold appeal to Indian consumers, though. A report from market analysts Canalys in May noted that Apple was challenging Samsung in the premium sector. In the first quarter of 2016, Apple's share of sales of phones costing more than $300 grew from 11 percent to 29 percent, while Samsung's fell from 66 percent to 41 percent. The iPhone-maker's overall market share may be small, but it has potential.

Accordingly, Cook says India resembles the Chinese market "seven to 10 years ago," and that the company is "taking a step back to view India more strategically." In practical terms, this has meant setting up an app accelerator, investing in its Indian mapping operation, and reaching out to Indian developers to build locally relevant services. If it really wants to, Apple can afford to wait out those "seven to 10 years" for the Indian market to develop, and right now, seems intent on building the foundations for its future business, even if its current market share is negligible.