Is Cook's Recipe Healthy For India?

Apple has opened its first retail store in India, spread over 20,000 square feet over two floors in the Jio World Drive mall in the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai. The store will provide customers with the opportunity to explore Apple products and services. Apple has leased out the space in the mall for 11 year contract. The company will be paying 42 lakh per month as a rental for the store, and will also share a part of the revenues with the space owner. The store will be operationally carbon neutral, relying on 100 percent renewable energy, and will have its own dedicated solar array, making it one of the most eco-friendly stores in the region.

- Shivanand Pandit

The doors were thrown open to thronging crowds by CEO Tim Cook himself. "The energy, creativity, and passion in Mumbai is incredible," Tim Cook said in a tweet. India has become China-plus one market for Apple to produce iPhones. The U.S. Company now makes almost 7% of its iPhones in India through partners.

Will Apple Stores in India facilitate enhancing its market portion in a nation that has been subjugated in recent years by Samsung and Chinese brands churning out low-to-mid-tier valued devices? Shivanand Pandit tries to find an answer.

AT long last, it’s here. Twenty seven years after Apple arrived India, 23 years from the time it started its maiden retail storehouse in the USA, and over two years after Apple’s online store was opened in the country, the physical Apple Store has arrived on Indian shorelines. On April 18, people aligned to click selfies with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was in India at the inauguration of the maiden storehouse in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC). Two days after throwing open the doors of the BKC store, Apple’s most supportable company-owned storehouse to date, the Cupertino-based tech titan greeted people into its storehouse in Delhi’s Saket.

Parenthetically, this was Cook’s second visit to India ever since he took over as CEO. And the Apple CEO had a chockfull agenda, meeting Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran in Mumbai followed by a parley with the Prime Minister, Union Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology, and Minister of State of the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. Cook was also seen with personages like Bollywood actresses Madhuri Dixit, Raveena Tandon, and former cricketer Anil Kumble.