Friday, December 23, 2011

Does Apple have right product in iPad for average Indian consumer?


Most of the people in India feel that Apple has got its pricing strategy wrong in India or Apple doesn’t want to focus on India as a market for its high end products like iPad and iPhone.  I feel that Apple is very smart to keep its pricing high for Indian consumers.  In my opinion, iPad is not the right product for middle class Indian consumer and Apple is aware of it.

Unlike west, most of the Indian middle class households generally have one computing device – either laptop or desktop and whole family uses it.  Personalization, as per the needs of different members in household, is one of the standard features of desktop operating systems.  Moreover, you have the option of logging out of your personal accounts (email, facebook, etc.) from the web browser.  However, Apple devices like iPad and iPhone are more of personal devices rather than family usage devices.  If one member of the family setups his/ her email, facebook, youtube, linkedin accounts on iPad/ iPhone, the information can be easily viewed by all other members of family without any restrictions.  I believe that Apple is very much aware of this cultural different between the India and west.  This is the reason of keeping prices of iPad/ iPhone high to target only upper middle class and upper class, who can afford iPad as their personal device and keep it personal too J

To sum it up, I believe that Apple is aware that they don’t have product in iPad for average Indian family and keeping the pricing high is a way to target the audience who can afford to treat iPad/ iPhone as personal device.