Apple’s adventures in India become increasingly serious

I can still recall the days when no one but me seemed to write about it, now Apple’s work in India seems to pick up fresh reportage almost every single day. Things are getting really serious, which is why Apple has elevated India to become a separate sales region with its own leadership and everything.

The elevation of India at Apple continues

Bear with me if this seems to be a corporate news story. It is that, but it’s also an important reflection of the company’s deeper strategy. Apple has decided to change its global sales structure, elevating Ashish Chowdhary to lead Apple’s teams in India.

He will replace the now retired Apple veteran, Hugues Asseman, who is now Appe’s former IMEA VP. Chowdhary will directly answer the company’s global product sales leader, Michael Fenger (who himself reports to CEO, Tim Cook), and India will become a separate sales region. Not that this will be reflected in Apple’s financial reporting, as India will still be kept within IMEA data.

A week in news from India

This is just the latest in a series of frenetic activities coming out of India. Just across the last week, we’ve seen the following:

• Apple VP Lisa Jackson gave an extraordinarily insightful interview in which the company promised to make big investments in carbon neutral supply chain development in India.
• Apple also announced it will work with NGO Frank Water to improve water management in India and Bengaluru.
• More recently, a senior executive of an Apple partner called Goertek made news when he suggested Apple is pushing really hard to get suppliers to set up manufacturing in India.
• That same executive made headlines again a few days later when he suddenly resigned with immediate effect.
• Apple supplier Foxconn announced a massive $700 million investment in building a new manufacturing facility at about the same time.
• That’s raising some friction in China, where Foxconn had to deny claims distributed on social media that the company is dismantling its existing production lines in China’s Shenzhen. Those claims are “false” a company rep said.

There have been additional stories too.

The focus seems pretty intense

The new corporate plan sees India, the world’s second biggest smartphone market, recognized for the importance it holds to the future of Apple’s business. The company posted record revenue there in the just-gone quarter and CEO Tim Cook recently explained how it plans to boost its business there.

“We are, in essence, taking what we learned in China years ago and how we scale to China and bringing that to bear,” he said. Apple is putting “a lot of emphasis on the market,” he said.

Last year, Cook said:

“I see India as a huge opportunity for us. For years we could not enter there unless we entered there with a partner, into retail, and we did not want to do that, you know? We want to maintain control over our brand and so forth. But the administration worked on this with the Indian government, and that change has been made.”

It reflects the strategic importance of the nation that under the new structure Apple’s business needs there are now just two handshakes away from the top of the corporate tree. That means whatever India finds it needs from Apple to build its business there the nation becomes more likely to get as Apple moves both to build sales and build more and more iPhones there.

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