Apple's long-term bet on India is starting to pay off. The company's revenue in India increased 42% year-on-year in 2023 to $8.700 billion, Morgan Stanley said in a note.
iPhone shipments in India grew 39% year-on-year in 2023 to 9,2 million units, making it its fifth-largest smartphone market. The iPhone business in India is now larger than that of any single country in the European Union, he added in the same publication.
“This means that in year 23, India accounted for 4% of iPhone shipments and revenues, up from 3% in year 22 and 1% 5 years ago. “This compares to iPhone shipments to China, which accounted for 20% of iPhone shipments and revenue in 23 (a drop of 1 to 2 points year-over-year, respectively),” the analysts wrote.
“Ultimately, this means that India as a standalone market is still not large enough to offset the declines we are seeing today in the Chinese market, but if India continues to grow on the same trajectory while China's iPhone shipments hold up stable, India would be an independent market. "An iPhone market larger than China by 2027."
Driving the iPhone's growth in India is growing consumer demand for premium devices with more storage capacity rather than the latest models. The average iPhone sold in India last year had about 260GB of memory, a 26% increase from 2022, Morgan Stanley said. iPhone average selling price (ASP) in India grew 2% year-on-year to $940 in 2023.
The top five iPhone models shipped in the country were the iPhone 13, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 and accounted for 86% of total sales, according to data from research firm IDC, cited by Morgan Stanley. Priced at $940, India's iPhone ASPs are still 10% behind the global average of $1.045.
Apple sees India as a major growth driver in the future and opened its first two retail stores in the country last year. The company is also increasingly moving its iPhone manufacturing to the South Asian nation. Morgan Stanley estimates that the tech giant's revenue in India will reach $40.000 billion by 2032.
