Tech giant Apple will increase its stores in India to around 200 by 2015, say reports.
The iPhone maker currently operates 65 stores in India through 17 exclusive resellers. Apple is one of the foreign players which do not source at least 30 per cent of their products from India, hence, is not allowed to open wholly-owned stores in the country.
Apple stores in India are not similar to its stores in other parts of the world, which feature minimalist design with glass facade and bright white logo.
Apple says it will remodel its Indian stores to make them uniform with the global standard.
“The existing stores and newer ones will be remodelled with newer fixtures that Apple uses in some of its best stores internationally to provide a far superior consumer experience,” said Biran Bade, CEO of Reliance Digital, which operates 20 Apple stores.
India has until now been a low priority market for Apple, however, high sales of iPhones and iPads have encouraged the company to look at the country as a strong potential growth market.
“Expanding the retail network to so many stores as it may be planning may be a little stretched for a market like India, but Apple surely knows its business best,” said Himanshu Chakrawarti, CEO at The Mobile Store, which also sells iPhones.