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Apple Retail Stores In India At Last Plus Other Positive Chatter

This article is more than 8 years old.

The Economic Times is out with an article on Apple partnering with Indian retailer, Croma, to set up the first Apple stores in India.

"We are proud to partner Apple to launch the Apple Store in India and extremely bullish about it," said Avijit Mitra, chief executive officer of Infiniti Retail, which owns Croma. "These stores will be modeled on the global design and will offer the best experience to consumers, showcasing the entire range of Apple products."

Incidentally, Infiniti Retail is owned by none other than Indian global conglomerate Tata Group, majority owner of Tata Motors also listed on the NYSE.

Apple has thus far been unable to open its own retail stores in India because of various bureaucratic rules about local sourcing conditions for single brand foreign retailing in India. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, has reportedly discussed the easing of these restrictions with Narendra Modi, the Indian PM on the latter's recent visit to the U.S.

Croma has 97 stores across India with approximately 3.8 million customers. Coma said that 6 stores will be initially set up with Apple products by the end of October-early November.

According to Counter Point Research, Apple has sold 1.7 million iPhones in India in the 12 months ended September 2015 compared to 1.1 million the year before.

Based on my anecdotal evidence I think those numbers are very understated given the fact that many Indians obtain their iPhones directly from friends and family overseas far before they officially debut in India.

Other major positive chatter on Apple is a Chinese language Economic Daily News report that said that Foxconn's "September revenues were the highest monthly figures so far in 2015, and sales are expected to climb higher in October, buoyed by orders from Apple for iPhone 6s devices."

Like I have said in recent articles, it's now getting close to the time to unwrap hedges/dark side positions on Apple which is what I have begun doing in the last few days although selling weekly calls is still the way to continually lower entry costs.

(please note I am long apple and long and short apple options)