The article rightly points out much of the stupendous success of Apple in the recent years, courtesy Steve Jobs‘s innovation backed with leadership. He was spot on what kind of product innovation was required to tap the hidden needs (wants?) of the customer. By opting for a model at the bottom of pyramid of smart-phone category, will Apple not deviate from Jobs’ vision for the company ?
More importantly, do they want to go down the segments, from a premium to mass ? Will the passionately loyal customers of Apple appreciate that shift ?
Is the need to tap lower segments so urgent now ? Have they hit a saturation level at the premium segment ? I don’t think so. For example, in India, I see so many still holding on to their Black Berry and upgrading to Samsung phones. By merely focusing on affluent/not-so-affluent Indians, Apple can scale up numbers for next few years, without diluting exclusivity of the phone.
Additionally, Apple has not done justice to the main weapon in their armor (‘brahmastra’), in the Indian context. They have still not leveraged on iTunes. Though they were very late to introduce Indian version of iTunes, the scope to cover the entire range of music, movies, et al, remains waiting to be incorporated. More importantly, Apple should launch iTunes aggressively in Indian market to reach out to a large number of music/movie-crazy Indian population. Make it affordable also, for the price-sensitive potential users, across demographics.
Apple was late to introduce iPhones in India, in the past. Indians would like to see global parity in terms of product launches.
Of course, they would love some ‘freedom’, as provided by Android platform! That may not be able to provide. I would personally go with the existing model of iPhones, with ‘limited freedom’ !
Pricing dilemma | Business Standard