iPhone Cheapest in India? Sure, But At What Cost?

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Author’s note: Please be warned that this is not a pro-Apple piece. Please feel free to skip it if you’re easily offended.

A few days ago, as I was going through the motions of executing my carefully structured, several-tiered daily regime (which primarily consists of eating, sleeping, reading, and writing—yes, I’m a very busy person), I received an email from Preshit pointing me to an article by Surit Doss in the leading English daily of West Bengal, ‘The Telegraph’.

The article was about the iPhone, a lengthy missive detailing how much the iPhone actually costs around the globe once you take the accompanying contracts into account. The author had clearly gone to great lengths to find out the prices and tariff structures associated with the purchase of an iPhone in various countries across the globe and had come to the conclusion that, at the end of two years from the date of purchase, Indians would have spent the least on their iPhones due to the much lower recurring costs associated with it.

Although I do agree with that calculation, and highly recommend that you give the article in question a thorough read if you’ve been on the fence about purchasing an iPhone, I do not necessarily agree that it therefore makes most sense to purchase an iPhone in India. Yes, the iPhone may not appear to be as expensive as it is in other countries when you break down the costs like that, but I think there’s more to it than meets the eye.

First and foremost, I don’t have a problem with the price so much as the attitude. AT&T is one of only two GSM carriers in the USA (and the largest one at that), which gives them far more monopolistic power than either Airtel or Vodafone in India, and yet they only charge you $199 for the purchase of an 8GB iPhone. The rest of the charges (like $30 for talk time and $40 for unlimited date)—while they may seem absolutely outrageous when converted to INR and viewed from an Indian context—are par for the course in the USA. They lock you into a contract (of two years) and sell you the phone for cheap in return.

In India, on the other hand, while both Airtel and Vodafone charge you the full price for the iPhone upfront, they lock you into a contract anyway, and one with no end in sight either. So the carriers get to have their candy and eat it too! Also, I’ve called both Airtel and Vodafone and enquired about this but none of the customer care executives of either company have any idea what happens to your phone the day you want to stop using your cellular connection. It’s clear that the phone will refuse to work with the SIM cards of other carriers and the contract is open ended, so people who buy the iPhone in India are, in effect, permanently locked into a contract with the carrier they choose.

There’s also a deeper problem here, one that is not directly related to the iPhone but is a byproduct all the same. This locking business hadn’t existed in India till phones like some of the BlackBerries and the iPhone introduced it. Trust me, you don’t want it to permeate and become a standard in the Indian telecom market, and the iPhone is paving the way for that. If it were to become a success, how many years would it take for the Indian telecom market to become just as crappy as the one that exists in the USA today? How long before it becomes normal to pay Rs. 4,000 per month as your cellphone bill, just because you wanted that shiny new phone that only came with a carrier lock-in?

Coming back to the iPhone, when it’s locked to the carrier, where are those exclusive benefits like Visual Voicemail? Since India didn’t have 3G when the iPhone was launched (and still doesn’t when it comes to Airtel and Vodafone) and doesn’t have proper GPS even today, why should be have to pay such a premium for these services? Where is the localisation in Hindi and other Indian languages on the App Store? Why are the prices not in INR? Why can’t we buy movies, music, and television shows to play on our iPhones?

Sure, the iPhone is much more expensive in other countries, but it’s also much more useful out there and is far better supported. How many online banking websites can you open in MobileSafari in India? I know it’s not Apple’s fault but they have to take these factors into account. Or they ought to have worked with companies like Google, Airtel, Vodafone, third-party developers, and banks and stuff to make GPS, Visual Voicemail, and all that glittery stuff available in India too. And then there is the whole no text forwarding, no Bluetooth, and no video recording nonsense that has been plaguing the iPhone since day one.

And if you think Apple is actively working to make the experience any better for iPhone owners in India, think twice. The iPhone is so poorly supported in India that you cannot even take it to an Apple Authorised Service Center to get it repaired, whether under warranty or not. All support queries regarding the iPhone are handled by Airtel and Vodafone respectively and we all know how much they know about the iPhone! Can you really expect a bunch of Indian college students sitting on customer service desks and playing Solitaire on their Windows-based machines to be able to help you if your iPhone stops playing music one day?

There is not even a single Apple Store in India! Can you think of one other silicon valley multinational company that doesn’t have official retail presence in India? Here’s the short answer: no, you cannot. Like I said, the problem is with the attitude, this mentality that they can sell anything in India at any price and make do with extremely poor sales too. They treat India like they’re here just because they gotta be here and aren’t really interested in either the competition or the customers.

And that is why I did not buy an iPhone officially, absolutely unwilling to be locked into a particular carrier and their tariff plans, and do not plan to upgrade my first generation iPhone until the situation of service and support improves in India. The iPhone may be slightly cheaper in India but that is really not something worth boasting about.

We may not realise this but phones have always been way cheaper in India than in countries like the USA. That the iPhone is narrowing that gap is something to worry about, not a badge of honour! If they keep incurring losses in India like they currently are though, hopefully they’ll realise how crucial the Indian market is, if due to nothing else then just owing to its sheer size—and then maybe we’ll see something really worth talking about!

Aayush Arya is a freelance author for ‘Macworld’ magazine and infrequent contributor to Smoking Apples. He’s generally found singing sky-high praises for Apple, which he’s often been referred to as a “fanboy” of, but has no patience for the company’s attitude towards developing nations like India and their citizens.

Tagged as: India, iPhone, Opinion, prices

Reader Comments

Is Apple shying away from India more than the Middle East? : Shufflegazine - Apple Lifestyle Magazine: June 24, 2009 at 9:47 pm

Rajbir March 26, 2009 at 10:32 am webkey.in: Excellent article, Aayush & I agree with all your points except that iPhone introduced carrier locked phones in India. Spice, Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata have some models in the market which are locked to them. That is going on before iPhone wasn’t even in our dreams.

Not a single company cares about their customers here. No one listens to you once you buy their product. Apple is slightly different here. They (indiasales@mac.com) didn’t even reply to email regarding sales from their potential customer! All I wanted to know was the Apple authorized dealers in my city. Other companies would have helped me in every possible way to sell me their product (don’t ask me about after sales service).
Aayush Arya March 26, 2009 at 11:37 am aayush.me: Spice, Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata have some models in the market which are locked to them. That is going on before iPhone wasn’t even in our dreams.

Yes, but they used to be locked because they were on the CDMA network, which didn’t work with SIM cards until very recently. Among the GSM carriers, to the best of my knowledge, locking appeared in India first with Blackberry and is now being furthered by Apple.

I may, however, be wrong about this, so feel free to correct me.
Sudhir March 26, 2009 at 5:28 pm: I think the question of the iTunes Store is not just a matter of ‘enabling’ it out here. The iTunes pricing of Rs. 50 per track is totally not suited for the Indian crowd (it’ll be a flop just like the iPhone).

I agree that this carrier locking should be taken care of by the TRAI. We should thank TRAI we don’t have contract based pricing structures out here.
Rajbir March 26, 2009 at 8:20 pm webkey.in: @Aayush- Airtel, Spice & Vodafone aren’t CDMA carriers. Airtel had some basic Nokia handsets locked to them long before Blackberries arrived.
Aravind Jose T. March 26, 2009 at 8:23 pm aravindjose.com/blog: Beautiful article. This is one reason we love, SA.
Soren March 26, 2009 at 9:06 pm: The carrier subsidized modal works well with the American way of ‘buy now pay later’. Look where that landed them. Hopefully the entire world learns that a credit based society will ultimately collapse like a stack of cards on a hot sunny sunday afternoon. This is where I realize I’m way off topic.
Aayush Arya March 26, 2009 at 9:22 pm aayush.me: As long as it increases the comment count, it’s always welcome. :p

@Aravind Jose T.
Thanks, that’s high praise.
billur July 25, 2009 at 5:03 pm billur: hı! I want to buy ıphone..but ın turkey ıt ıs so expensive thats why ı want to buy ıt other countrıes.ıN amerıca ,someone says ’ ı will buy without any contract’.someone says ’ I couldnt buy bec.of contract ’ I m very confused pls help mee..or another which country will be cheaper??