Poppies give Apple a bigger piece of the Indian pie

But the most surprising thing was the new record sales of Mac laptops and desktops set in the June quarter, which played a minor role in the company’s growing influence on Indians’ gadget purchasing preferences.

Estimates from experts surveyed by Mint Apple’s India Mac revenue grew 67% year-over-year (YoY) in the April-June quarter, with units sold increasing 33%. Additionally, India’s revenue share of global Mac sales rose to 3% in Q1 FY25 from 1.8% in Q1 FY24.

Industry executives have linked the rise in Apple’s Mac sales to increased demand from businesses, a factor that could help the company boost its laptop and desktop sales in India over the next two years or more.

There is no doubt that iPhones still account for 85-90% of Apple’s revenue in India, and the company’s annual net revenue is expected to grow by around 30% in fiscal 2024. Analysts predict that fiscal 2025 will also be a year of double-digit revenue growth for Apple.

CEO Tim Cook underscored that trend during Thursday’s earnings conference call, saying India once again topped Apple’s list for record quarterly revenue, despite a 5 percent annual increase in net revenue to $85.8 billion.

The Rise of the Mac

During Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call on Thursday, Luca Maestri, the company’s senior vice president and chief financial officer, said, “Mac generated $7 billion in revenue, up 2% year over year, driven by the M3-based MacBook Air. We performed particularly well in our emerging markets, with record June quarter results for Mac in Latin America, India, and South Asia.”

Survey of three sell-side analysts Mint Apple is estimated to have sold around 150,000-160,000 units of Mac devices in India between April and June this year. At an average selling price (ASP) ₹During this period, Apple is estimated to have earned about $210 million ($110,000) from Mac sales.

Compared, Mint research has shown that a total of 2.3 million laptops and desktops of all brands were sold in India during this period at an average selling price ₹45,000 ($540) — thus generating $1.24 billion in pure market revenue in the June quarter.

So, even with a market share of around 6.5% by volume, Apple accounted for almost 17% of the revenue earned by brands in the laptop market. That’s probably not surprising, considering that Apple laptops are typically more expensive than their competitors’ offerings.

In comparison, HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo, which were the top four laptop and desktop brands in India by volume, accounted for 78% of all PCs sold in the country, according to a report on the sector released on May 16 by research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) India.

HP is estimated to have earned $500 million in revenue in the June quarter, while the other three companies earned $250-290 million each. Mint survey of analysts. This leaves Apple as the fifth largest PC brand by revenue in India and sixth by volume.

Company merger

Analysts say Apple’s corporate deals were a key factor behind the growth. Ashweej Aithal, a research analyst at research firm Canalys, said Apple’s growing reach into small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and other enterprises was a key factor in this regard.

“There has been an increase in enterprise Mac purchases. Migration from Windows to Mac is higher than ever before, and Apple’s channel partners are pushing for enterprise contracts more than ever before,” Aithal said, adding that growth is slower among consumers and there is more room for growth on the enterprise side in the coming year.

A key example of such a deal was disclosed by Apple on July 10 with domestic IT services company Zoho Corp. In a blog post, Apple said that 65% of Zoho’s roughly 16,000-person workforce chose an Apple product to work with. Apple also said it receives “50% fewer support requests for Macs than for PCs.”

Although Apple did not disclose the amount due for the Zoho deal, Mint The company estimates the contract is worth around $10-15 million, which is around 5-7% of the company’s quarterly Mac revenue in India.

This, industry executives say, is just the beginning. Bharath Shenoy, senior market analyst at IDC India, said Apple’s expansion into the enterprise market is still in its early stages.

“Enterprises were cautious about investing in IT contracts in the first three months of the year due to the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty,” Shenoy said, adding that many decisions were also deferred due to the Indian General Assembly elections.

“The coming two quarters will therefore see a significant increase in enterprise demand for IT contracts – a factor that could really benefit Apple in terms of domestic Mac revenue,” Shenoy said.

Canalys’ Aithal added that the recent Crowdstrike-Microsoft outage has accelerated inquiries from enterprises. “Enterprises are very interested in Macs from a security perspective. AI is also another factor that Apple is clearly capitalizing on,” Aithal said.