Apple in India: bad apple
I called the Imagine store at the Forum Mall in Bangalore. For the uninitiated, Imagine store is an Apple re-seller in Bangalore. I enquired about the launch of Leopard. I was confidently told that it was being launched on Friday, the 26th. I immediately had visions of my credit card being swiped. On probing whether I can pick it up at the shop on Friday, I was put on hold. A ’senior’ voice came on line and said that the launch is in the US (we already know that) and they have no clue as to when it would be available in India (‘Apple India has not told us, Sir’).
I also checked about iLife ‘08, iWork ‘08 and iPod Touch. All three were ‘expected’ in another 10 days time.
As an aside, its quite disappointing for an Apple fan to see how Apple is so poorly marketed in India. The halo effect that the brand enjoys in the US and elsewhere is simply not there in India. Most have never heard of a thing called Macintosh or think its just an expensive, showy computer – no better than a PC. Things have definitely improved a bit after iPod. But, the market is very price sensitive and the superior value of buying an Apple is difficult to sell when cheaper options are available.
Sometime back I called my broadband service provider for tech support. I was asked what my OS was (‘XP or Vista, Sir?’). When I said ‘Mac OS X’, I was asked again in a different tone, ‘Sir, I asked for the operating system’. Sigh. Forget 3rd party suppliers, I have called the customer care number provided in the Apple website during earthly hours only to have no one pick up the phone! Double Sigh.
When one reads about Apple’s revival in the US, its halo effect, growing market shares and results it makes one pine for such good news in India. But there are several factors impeding it: pricing being primary among them. Even in the area of graphic design, there used to be a time when Art Directors in agencies working only on a Mac. Today a lot of the young Art Directors prefer a PC.
In my view, all marketing efforts of Apple in India have been sporadic and ad hoc. One does not get the feeling that there is a concerted effort to correct the image-value equation by using a combination of word-of-mouth, advertising, PR and ground activation. I am not sure whether India is even on the radar of Apple in terms of improving shares. Is it?
