- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Apple chief executive Tim Cook is set to meet Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and its deputy information technology (IT) minister as part of his visit to the South Asian nation to inaugurate the iPhone maker’s first retail store on its soil this week, Reuters reported citing informed sources.
The visit by Cook to open the inaugural company-owned outlets in the Indian cities of Mumbai and New Delhi underscores the US company’s growing ambitions for India, where it has been expanding iPhone assembly via contract manufacturers and also boosting its exports despite having just three per cent market share.
Cook will meet Modi on Wednesday (19), the two sources, including an Indian government official, said.
According to Reuters, one of the sources also said that the Apple CEO would meet Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s minister of state for IT.
Modi’s office did not comment on the matter, the report added.
India exported smartphones worth around $9 billion between April last year and February this year and iPhones accounted for more than half of that, data from the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association said.
A Bloomberg report said that Apple assembled more than $7 billion of iPhones in India last fiscal, increasing production by three times after accelerating a move beyond China, which is witnessing tensions with the US in areas such as geostrategy and trade.
Apple opened its first store in Mumbai on Monday but it was a private event where bloggers and tech analysts reviewed the design and store layout.
The store will be opened to the public on Tuesday (18) while a second store will be inaugurated in New Delhi on Thursday (20).
