Phone calls were transferred to India 20 times! Apple is aggressively grabbing Android market share in emerging markets and surviving.

The global smartphone market is sluggish, but Apple "wins" in India and remains a winner!

The latest second-quarter earnings report shows that Apple's sales revenue for the quarter was $51.33 billion, significantly higher than the expected $48.97 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.5%, far exceeding the market's original expectation of a 3% decline.

Third-party data from research company Canalys further shows that although global smartphone shipments fell by 13% from January to March this year, Apple has taken more market share from Android phones.

Why did Apple grow against the trend? Apple attributes it to the success it has achieved after betting heavily on emerging markets such as India!

Emerging markets such as India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Mexico contributed significantly, setting sales records in many countries in Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East. India, in particular, has seen very strong growth as its business scope continues to expand.

Specifically, including India, other Asia-Pacific regions, revenue for the quarter increased to $8.119 billion, a 15% increase from $7.042 billion in the same period last year, making it the region with the highest revenue growth rate for Apple in the first quarter. Sales of Apple in India, Indonesia, Turkey, and the UAE doubled year-on-year.

Apple CEO Cook believes that Apple's heavy investment in emerging markets, considering the population structure of these markets and Apple's relatively low market share, means "huge growth opportunities".

Taking India, where Apple has recently invested heavily and opened its first two direct stores, as an example, Counterpoint data shows that in the past 2022, Apple has become the second-largest revenue-generating brand in India after Samsung Electronics, accounting for 18% of the country's total smartphone shipments; the second-hand market is also booming, with Apple accounting for 11% of India's second-hand smartphone sales.

Cook also said that he sees "many people in India entering the middle class" and that "India is at a turning point", with low average user income and great long-term opportunities in various fields.

In short, for Apple, users in emerging markets buying Apple is just the beginning. As time goes by, these users may also purchase "Apple one-stop-shop" products such as Apple Watch and AirPods, and may also have the willingness to pay for subscriptions, bringing more service revenue to Apple.

Interestingly, compared to Microsoft and Alphabet-C's endless talk about AI in conference calls, Apple only briefly answered analysts' questions about AI in a few minutes during a more than one-hour conference call, but mentioned India 20 times, which shows Apple's emphasis on the Indian market.