Apple launches Watch, two iPhones & Apple Pay

Both phones have wi-fi calling facility; mobile payment features; the iPhone 6 has a 4.7" screen and the iPhone 6 Plus a 5.5" screen, and will be thinner than any iPhone before

Apple Inc on Tuesday unveiled redesigned iPhones with bigger screens, overhauling its top-selling product in an event that gave the clearest sign of the company’s product direction under Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. Enthusiasts in India, however, might have to wait for longer before they can buy these products.

The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus come in screen sizes of 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches, respectively, along with rounded edges and a frame thinner than earlier models, as well as higher-resolution displays.
The company, which unveiled its new iPhones and other devices in San Francisco, again left out India from the list of markets where the products would first be launched. This might indicate the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market is yet to emerge as a market of importance for the US tech giant.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the thinnest iPhones ever made which support long-term evolution (LTE) and voice over LTE across 200 carriers (three of those in China), will be available in the US from September 19. Pre-booking orders in that country will begin on September 12.

Launches in Canada, France, Hong Kong, Germany, Singapore, the UK, Australia and Japan will follow. The plan is to make the new iPhones available in 15 countries by the end of this calendar year.

Apple’s success in India, by way of buy-back offers it started in October last year with iPhone 4 and 4S, does not seem to have increased India’s significance as a market for Apple Inc.

While Apple resellers expect the device to be officially available in the country’s market by the end of September, handset sellers in the grey market here claim they can deliver Apple’s new iPhones, with larger screens, within 10 days of the US launch — for a premium, of course. Authorised Apple resellers have little information. “We are yet to get an official information on availability of the new iPhones,” says a reseller in South Delhi.

In the US, the iPhone 6 will come for $199 (bundled services with a two-year contract with the carriers), while the iPhone 6 Plus will cost $299 (with the same carrier contract terms). The prices in India will be much higher because it is a retail market and does not support carrier contracts.

Grey-market sellers in India are expecting the prices to be in the range of Rs 60,000 (16 GB, 4.7 inches) to Rs 85,000 (64 GB, 5.5 inches). However, for delivery of these devices before official launch in the country, grey-market prices could carry a premium of about 20 per cent over the expected price tag.

“We have already received some pre-booking orders. Most of those are from people who bought iPhone 5 from us before the device was made available in India,” said a handset seller at the city’s Khan market who takes 50 per cent of the quoted price as deposit for pre-bookings. The pre-launch grey-market demand for iPhone 6 was, however, lower than that for earlier models, said the seller quoted earlier.

Apple resellers confirmed they were getting enquiries but not taking any pre-booking orders.

When Apple had launched the iPhone 5 in the US on September 21, 2012, the company initially released the product for the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and UK markets. The product was released for 22 other countries on September 28.

The company’s buy-back offers at the time of the launch of its iPhone 5S and 5C — the prices of its iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S in India were reduced by Rs 7,000 — had proved a game changer for the company’s strategy in the country. Between October 2013 and August this year, Apple sold more than a million iPhones in India, increasing its market share in the smartphone segment from 0.3 per cent in 2013 to close to three per cent.

The company’s sales in the country have, however, dropped in the past few months. It is offering discounts of Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 on the iPhone 5S on e-commerce channels to clear stocks.

Also, like other markets, Apple tried offering its iPhone 5 with operator services bundled in. Operators are in discussions with the company for possible bundling this time as well, but nothing seems to have been formalised so far.

Watch, payment system launched
Apple made a plunge into the wearable segment, with the launch of the Apple Watch, priced at $349. CEO Cook said this was the most personal device Apple had created. Also launched was Apple Pay, a payment service to combine hardware, software and services.