Indians, if you would go by the Twitter feeds and posts, are up in flames about the iPad 2. The recurring theme of the question – why isn’t it available in India – almost at the same time that it is available in the rest of the (first) world. There are accusations of dumping an “old” iPad in India and many such-like themes and questions.
A long time blog mate, has a post published at IBN – his open letter to Steve Jobs – regarding how Steve Jobs has forsaken the India – as a market.
Before I get into this post, I’d like you to know that I use a multitude of Apple products. I have a Macbook, a Macbook Pro (work), an iMac, an iPod Classic, an iPhone, an iPad (V1.0), a Time Capsule. Another Macbook, and an iPod Touch 4G, with the rest of my family. Except for the Time Capsule, all products were bought in India, as, and when they were available. I also happen to have a Windows 7 Acer laptop. Needless to say, my household is pretty much Apple oriented.
And for those who have said so, I am no Apple fanboy. There are enough things that I dislike about using Apple products, but I make a very personal choice in what works for me. Unfortunately, this is not how it works for most folks.
On Strategy
So, Steve Jobs. Why do you ignore a big market like India? OK, says Steve. Let me take a really good look at this market: (a) how many of you are willing to pay a Rs. 35K+ price for a phone, when your local Nokia vendor will retrofit a phone with illegal songs worth 4GB for free in a phone that costs Rs.12K? Steve, I guess, would ask, of your billion+ population, (b) how many can afford this phone and (c) how many need this phone. and (d) how many can really make use of this phone? If I were to launch the iPad 2 on March 11 in India, how many of you would (be really be able to) use FaceTime?
How have we as a country come to have this love-hate relationship with Apple? I really wonder. It is not that Microsoft had an amazing love for this country. So why do we hate Apple? Not for its products, as it is obvious by the amount of tweets on the keynote for iPad 2. Someone somewhere told us that we are a market force to reckon with – and we believe it. Statistical data might prove it true, too, but here’s the crux: if there is a particular way that Apple wants to do its business – and India is not a part of it – that’s just how things work! Apple is a corporation. It has responsibilities to its shareholders. To question the priorities and the mission of the board of the company is no business of the consumers. If it is so painful – why aren’t we scurrying to buy the Nokias and the LGs of the world? Why lambast Apple products. Godammit, if he doesn’t want to sell here, he doesn’t want to sell here. Apple is a private corporation. It has the freedom to operate based on what what it perceives to be its best interest.
I can understand a customer complaining about bad service – I just don’t get a potential customer demanding a service. I call it public-sector-socialist thinking.
On Choice
Is it that Indians don’t have a choice? For a population that thrives on “free”, any Android phone would make perfect sense. Nokias and LGs and the recent new breed of the Micromaxes, would too. Seriously, why would most Indians want an iPad? Out of home or office where you do not have access to Wi-Fi, it is pretty useless, apart from being an offline device. 3G is a big effing joke, in India, anyways. And all of the Twitterati who are complaining against Apple about why the company “ignored” India, why don’t we all take “revenge” and buy ourselves a Samsung Tab and teach Apple a lesson? It does more than what an iPad (1 or 2) does.
If 1/16 of the population of this country were to give a rupee to Adam’s Notion Ink, they’d have INR 6,25,00,000 to build the iPad “killer” – but, it is unfortunate – that we insist on deserving an overpriced locked-down device and are willing to curse the company for not making it easily available to us. Oh, what the hell, how many of us (even morally) supported the $35 Laptop for Education?
We have choice – we just don’t want to see it.
Apple is not a government institution nor a social organisation. It has choice as much as you do. If it hurts your ego so much to import an Apple product from the Middle East or another “unlocked” country, via your ‘foreign’ cousin, don’t do it. You have alternatives. But if it is an Apple product that you desire, find a way. This is not the first time Indians have been denied something – and this definitely not the last. All these years, we have found a way, haven’t we? To curse a private sector business for its business decisions is not just untoward, it is futile.
There may come a time when one of the IT behemoths in India may (finally) build a product that is world-class, innovative, and path-breaking. They will shed the compulsive demand of scale and low-hanging fruit and make difference in this world. That day, the world will ask of us that we have to make it available globally. That day – if we think of relevancy, market strategy, revenue imperatives, will we be wrong?
Scale vs. Premium. Where are we; where is Apple? If you are a consumer caught in conflict between the two, you will have to find a way out. As Indians, that is in our genes. We invented jugaad, didn’t we?
Selaphor 