iPhone’s Success in the US and Europe is not Matched by Its Market Share in India
Apple’s iPhones are the most used smartphones in the US with a massive Q2 2022 market share of 48 percent, followed by Samsung at 30 percent, and Lenovo including Motorola at 9 percent. In Europe, August 2022 data attributes a second position to Apple’s mobile devices of 31.83 percent, just a little below Samsung’s leading share of 32.19 percent, and way above Xiaomi’s 14.23 percent. At the same time, Apple’s situation on the Indian smartphone market is anything but ‘leading’ or ‘dominant’, and the Cupertino, California tech giant is not even among the top 5 brands in market share.
“The Indian consumer remains on the lookout for more value for money despite the defining powers of metropolitan gamers. This is true for hardware (devices) and software (game monetization types). The majority of mobile devices are sold in the range between USD 50 [roughly INR 4,000] and USD 200 [roughly INR 16,000]. The listed brands of Android smartphones dominate the market because of the numerous offers in that category, something Apple does not intend and cannot afford to pursue,” as concluded by Svilen Madjov, Industry Researcher at desi casino comparison platform SevenJackpots, in his recent study on which mobile devices are popular for gambling in India.
Madjov’s study establishes a modest 5.44 percent share held by Apple among real money gamers in India, dominating only within the premium smartphone segment over rival OnePlus which has a share of 3.95 percent. The iPhone also ‘beats’ one of the global market leaders – Huawei, which is used by just 2.14 percent of desi RMG players.
The top 5 smartphone brands in terms of popularity among gamers in the country are all Android-operated and are led by Xiaomi with a share of 23.38 percent, followed by Samsung (19.24 percent), Vivo (15.25 percent), Oppo (10.68 percent), and the short list is closed by Realme with a market share of 8.87 percent. As a whole, the top six Android brands combined account for 89 percent of all mobile phones used.
These figures have been derived from an analysis of proprietary anonymous aggregate data on player traffic, including visits, sessions, clicks and bounce rates, of approximately 78,000 users on the SevenJackpots platform within a period of 15 months until the middle of 2021.
Public-domain industry statistics and datasets are used in the research paper to compare and verify the findings based on proprietary data. For example, iOS had a 3.88 percent market share among smartphones in India in May 2022, while Android dominated with 95.1 percent.
It’s Not Only Price Factors that Determine Apple’s Weak Sales Performance in Bharat
Generally, Android phones “are cheaper, found everywhere, and have special offers for the Indian market,” as Svilen Madjov points out in his research paper. Moreover, the top Android brands, despite being Chinese-owned, are manufactured locally in India which helps keep their cost down. Nevertheless, the price is not the only factor that determines Apple’s relatively weak sales performance in the country.
The Android operating system is an open one, and this allows Indian developers and game studios to work freely with it, providing the market with more native and localized content. At the same time, top influencers and tech reviewers predominantly showcase Android devices which have already gained a market share across the country.
On the other hand, iOS is having issues with app support (Maps, Siri), its Apple Pay service has still not been launched in India, the opening of the brand’s dedicated retail and online shops suffered numerous delays, and real money and casino games are not well covered by Apple’s App Store, unlike the situation with Google’s Play Store and the much better integration of payment providers by Android.
As a result, Apple products remain “more of a status symbol for desi consumers, the iPhone is popular with influencers in Delhi and Mumbai. Apple did not target a wider market over the years, with iPhone ads often limited to airports, big cities, and glitzy locations,” industry researcher Madjov writes.
