Apple has been given the green light to open its first Indian store by 2021 after it received a special approval from the Government of India.
The tech giant’s CEO, Tim Cook, personally made this announcement during the annual shareholders’ meeting, noting that Indian officials allowed the company to expand in their country even without a local partner.
According to reports, the iPhone maker had to endure ten years of vending its products in India through third-party sellers, stores and marketplaces due to the country’s retail policy.
But this will now finally come to end. In fact, Apple is also set to open its online store in India this year.
“I’m a huge believer in the opportunity in India…It’s a country with a vibrancy and demographics that are just unparalleled,” said Cook.
Apple hopes that its move into India could help spur sales growth considering that the country is the world’s second largest smartphone market.
The multinational company has been reported facing sluggish demand in China for the past months; and with the current hit of the coronavirus outbreak, Apple’s financial status got even worse.
A number of its manufacturing plants in China were shut down while some operate with limited capacity in an aim to control the virus spread. With this, the company said it won’t meet its expected quarterly earnings for 2020.
