iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Pre-Orders Off to a Strong Start in India
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went up for pre-orders in the country on Tuesday, and it seems India cannot get enough of the two new iPhone models. Sources close to Apple India tell NDTV Gadgets that the two new iPhone variants have received record pre-orders, with over 20,000 bookings logged by Apple authorised retailers across the country till the end of business on Wednesday.
While that may not seem like an impressive number in absolute terms, anyone familiar with the realities of the India smartphone market will realise that's great going for a company's flagship smartphone. For example, LG India said it was targetting Rs. 200 crore sales from its 2013 flagship, the LG G2. A bit of calculation tells you that in terms of number of units sold, that's anywhere between 50,000 and 63,000 units, depending upon the base price you use. When you consider the new iPhone models have received nearly half as many pre-orders in just two days, you know Apple India has plenty of reasons to be happy.
To put a rupee figure to those bookings, let's presume the average selling price of an iPhone as Rs. 53,500. That's assuming all iPhone models booked are 16GB iPhone 6, the cheapest new iPhone on offer. The actual average would of course be much higher, with many people pre-booking the bigger iPhone 6 Plus, or higher capacity iPhone models. Indeed, an informal poll conducted by us indicated that the 64GB iPhone 6 Space Grey was the most sought after model in India, a variant that will sell at Rs. 62,500. But let's disregard all that for a moment and presume Rs. 53,500 as the average selling price and crunch some numbers. Based on the number of pre-bookings received in just 2 days, at 20,000+ units, Apple is set to record sales of over Rs. 105 crores.
Of course, not all of these sales may actually be realised - since Apple is letting customers pre-book an iPhone without paying anything up-front, the number of no-shows on launch day will likely be higher than what would have been the case had people been asked to cough up a fixed amount for booking an iPhone. Even accounting for those potential no-shows, sources tell NDTV Gadgets that Apple India is excited about the 'unprecedented' pre-books the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have received in the country.
With Apple partners guaranteeing launch day delivery for anyone who pre-books an iPhone, it's obvious the company will need to import several thousand iPhone units just to cater to early demand for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. As you would expect, Apple is also planning to import additional units to account for walk-ins and other customers looking to buy the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus right after launch. However, based on the strong demand that the new iPhone models are seeing, it would be no surprise to see the new iPhone models being hard to come by during the initial days.
For now, if you are keen to guarantee early access to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, your best bet is pre-booking a unit to ensure delivery on October 17.
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