After Apple began building products in the country, and after plenty of glad-handing, India relaxed the retail rule in 2018. Even so, it’s taken a while for India to allow Apple (and other major foreign brands) to sell their wares direct to consumers online. And this plan was originally going to take place far earlier this year, but was disrupted by the effect of COVID-19. 

Coronavirus has seen India’s economy contract by anything up to 25 percent, with its manufacturing, construction and service industries hardest hit. Despite this, analysts say that the country is now the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China, making it a key battleground for big hardware makers. India is, however, nowhere near as wealthy as other nations, and so much of this boom has been to the benefit of low-end Chinese phone makers as well as domestic players.

The high price of the iPhone means that Apple has a paltry chunk of the country’s marketshare, with iOS holding 3.35 percent of the market. Sure, it’s the most popular phone amongst premium phone users, but in a country of 1.353 billion, that’s not a huge amount of people. Local sales may help, although as iOS device growth stalls, it’s likely that it’ll need to adjust its devices to cater for a more “price-sensitive” market.