Apple loses to RIM in Indian smartphone mkt

Apple Inc, the world’s largest smartphone maker, is having trouble selling iPhones in India, a market with 602 million active subscribers.

Apple, which would introduce a new iPhone version tomorrow, ships fewer handsets to the world’s second-largest mobile-phone market than it does to Norway. Nokia Oyj and Research In Motion Ltd sell more devices in India, where smartphone shipments are forecast to grow almost 70 per cent a year until 2015, helping mitigate their market-share losses in the US and Europe.

Sales for the world’s biggest company by market value are hindered because Indian wireless carriers, which started third- generation networks this year, have yet to offer nationwide services fast enough to take advantage of iPhone features, said Gus Papageorgiou, an analyst at Scotia Capital Inc in Toronto.

“Networks in India are just not conducive for Apple—3G networks aren’t quite where they are in Western Europe and North America,” he said. “RIM got the right product, the right timing, the right app.” Apple shipped 62,043 iPhones to India in the quarter ending June 30, or fewer than to Norway, Belgium or Israel, according to estimates by Framingham, Massachusetts-based researcher IDC.

Apple dropped 0.6 per cent to the equivalent of $381.08 in German trading as of 11:22 am in Frankfurt.

Apple accounted for 2.6 per cent of India’s smartphone shipments in the quarter ended June 30, trailing RIM’s 15 per cent, Samsung Electronics Co’s 21 per cent and Nokia’s 46 per cent, IDC estimates. “The iPhone only really works when you have Wi-Fi,” said Kshma Shah, a 25-year-old interior designer in Mumbai. “3G has barely started in India, and on 2G, you just can’t have the same experience.”

The world’s largest maker of tablet computers also shipped about 21,150 iPads to India in the same period, or 0.2 per cent of its global total, according to IDC. RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger instant-messaging service is popular because it was one of the first, and it functions well on networks a generation behind the speeds offered in the US and Europe, Papageorgiou said.

“Only a few of my friends have iPhones,” said Mahafareenn Sarkari, a 25-year-old dance instructor in Mumbai. “BlackBerry is where everybody is, so it made sense for me to be on it, too.”

RIM’S ‘WAVE’
RIM, which entered India in 2004, plans to extend its lead over Apple after expanding distribution to 80 cities from 15 starting last year, said Krishnadeep Baruah, director of marketing for Waterloo, Canada-based RIM in India. “We want to ride this wave,” Baruah said. “This is really the time to expand into the emerging towns and cities.”

That contrasts with RIM’s struggles worldwide, with its stock falling 65 per cent this year on the Nasdaq Stock Market. At least five RIM executives have left since March, and the company sold half as many PlayBook tablets in the second quarter as analysts had forecast on average.