Apple reportedly reshuffled its management team and promoted a head of its Indian market, making India a separate sales region, a sign of the India's growing importance to Apple, which has seen double-digit sales growth in the South Asian nation.
Bloomberg quoted sources saying that after Hugues Asseman, vice president in charge of India, the Middle East, Mediterranean, East Europe, and Africa, retired, Apple promoted Ashish Chowdhary, the country manager for India that Apple appointed in August 2022, to report directly to Apple's head of product sales Michael Fenger.
The rumored move may make India its own sales region at Apple, highlighting India's significance for Apple's sales. Still, according to the report, Apple will continue to include India, along with the Middle East and Africa, in Apple's Europe category in the earnings report.
Despite a declining global smartphone market, Apple performed quite well in India in recent years. Apple reported a 5% annual decline in quarterly sales in the fiscal quarter ending in December 2022, the largest quarterly decline for Apple since 2016, but set all-time high revenue records in markets that include India.
According to IDC, Canalys, and other CMR data, Apple shipped 1.9-2 million iPhones in India in the fourth quarter of 2022, up more than 10% year-on-year from a year earlier, and accounted for a 5% market share in the world's second-largest smartphone market.
Meanwhile, Financial Times reported in January that Apple posted new job listings for its Apple Retail teams in various locations and potentially for its upcoming flagship stores expected to open in the first half of 2023. In the latest earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple brought the online store in India in 2020 and will soon bring Apple Retail there.
Times of India reported that the revenue of Apple India rose 45% to INR333.81 billion (US$4.07 billion) for fiscal 2022 (April 2021 to March 2022). Still, it accounted for a mere 1% of Apple sales generated globally for the same period.
