Apple needs a cheap iPhone to crack India

CNN: Apple’s problems in China are piling pressure on the company to find a way to grow in India, the world’s hottest market for smartphones.
But with the latest iPhones costing more than half the average annual wage, Apple (AAPL) faces an uphill battle to take a much bigger share of India’s market than its current 2%.
Tariffs on imported smartphones, a ban on Apple Stores in India and the weakness of the Indian rupee against the US dollar have hobbled the Silicon Valley giant.
Meanwhile, global competitors such as Samsung and Xiaomi have carved up India between them, accounting for one in every two smartphones sold. They’re supplying devices that compete on quality at much more affordable prices, and have set up huge local manufacturing operations to avoid tariffs and keep costs down.
Apple began making older, cheaper iPhones in India in 2017 at a plant near the southern tech hub of Bangalore, starting with the iPhone SE and adding the iPhone 6S in the middle of last year. CEO Tim Cook described that effort as having “gone well.”