Apple’s sales in India crossed $10 billion for the first time in the 12 months through March, according to people familiar with the matter, a double-digit gain that puts the country among the fastest-growing markets for the iPhone maker.
Sales rose from about $9 billion a year earlier, the people said, with iPhones accounting for the bulk of the increase. Demand for iPads and MacBooks also grew over the period, as Apple pushed more of its global production into the country and expanded its own retail presence.
Apple has spent years rebuilding its India operations. The company began assembling iPhones locally through contract manufacturers, starting with older models and gradually moving current ones into Indian plants. Local assembly lets Apple avoid steep import duties and gives it a pricing edge against rivals, and the shift accelerated after the pandemic as Apple looked to reduce its reliance on China for both assembly and sales.
Analysts said the $10 billion mark carries weight beyond the number itself. India is one of the few large phone markets still growing, they said, at a time when global smartphone shipments are roughly flat. The country also offers Apple something China no longer does: a young population moving up the income ladder, and a government eager to court foreign manufacturers with tax breaks and land.
The growth story has limits. India’s phone market is dominated by low-cost Android devices, and iPhones remain a premium product in a country where the average handset sells for a fraction of an iPhone’s price. Apple’s gains, analysts said, come mostly from a slice of affluent urban buyers, plus a growing market for financing and trade-in programs that lower the effective price of a new iPhone.
The production side has moved faster than the sales side. Apple now makes a growing share of its iPhones in India, according to people familiar with the company’s supply chain, with Foxconn and Tata Group operating major assembly plants in the south of the country. The government’s production-linked incentive scheme, which pays companies for local output, helped draw that investment.
Tariffs have added urgency. Trade measures raised the cost of importing phones and components into the United States, and Apple has been shifting more assembly capacity to India and other countries in response, analysts said. India’s own import duties on phones have pushed Apple to assemble locally rather than ship finished devices in, which has the side effect of deepening the local supply base.
India’s premium segment is expanding from a small base. Apple’s share of India’s smartphone market remains in the single digits by volume, analysts estimate, but its share of revenue is far higher because iPhones sell at several times the average handset price. The company has opened its own stores in Mumbai and New Delhi, a step it skipped in India for years, and it has leaned on financing offers and trade-ins to court upgraders.
Competitors are watching. Samsung dominates India’s premium segment, and Chinese brands such as Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo hold the mass market. Apple’s push into local assembly and retail gives it a foothold that analysts said could compound over the next several years as more Indians trade up from cheaper phones.
The $10 billion figure also matters for Apple’s finances. India remains a small share of the company’s global revenue, but it is one of the few regions where sales are growing at a double-digit pace, and the margin profile of an iPhone sold in India is close to the global average. Strategically, a second large market reduces Apple’s exposure to any single region, analysts said, and executives have described India as a priority for the decade.
The retail expansion is part of the bet. After opening its first two Indian stores, Apple has been adding locations in more cities, and its online store in India has widened distribution beyond the dealer network it relied on for years. Each new store gives Apple a direct line to the country’s wealthiest consumers, the people most likely to buy an iPhone as their next phone.
People familiar with the company said the momentum has continued since March, with demand for the latest iPhones tracking above year-earlier levels. Analysts said the trajectory suggests India could soon account for a meaningfully larger share of Apple’s revenue than it does today, though the path depends on the country’s economy and on how quickly the premium segment grows.
For a company that spent years treating India as an afterthought, the $10 billion figure measures how far the bet has come. The question now is whether Apple can repeat the trick as the market matures and Chinese rivals push further upmarket.
