A recent report has claimed that Apple Inc. and Flipkart have partnered for the online retail of the latest iPhone 7 devices. The report from BGR has revealed that the two companies have involved in a partnership deal to sell the latest mobiles from Apple in India from October 7 onwards. However, the confirmation on the said partnership is yet to be received.
Apple sells its products directly from its website in US and other markets. But, Apple does not hold the license to sell its products directly in India. As per the Indian regulations, Apple cannot sell its latest mobiles and other products directly in India as the company does not have its manufacturing unit in India. Hence the tech giant has to direct the buyers to third-party retail and online stores.
Flipkart has the largest e-tail market share in the country’s e-commerce market. The major portion of Flipkart’s revenue comes from smartphone sales. Multiple smartphone brands like LeEco and Motorola has their product lineup exclusively on Flipkart. Recently, Flipkart had sold over 1 Lakh units of Motorola’s latest mobiles from E3 series within a 24 hour period.
Before the partnership, Flipkart was reliant on third-party retailers for trading Apple products through its marketplace. And as an effect of this, Flipkart had to avail heavy discounts on iPhones and other Apple products to compete with the rivals like Amazon India and Paytm among the others in ahead of the gross merchandise value.
The partnership of Apple of Flipkart will help to undertake the control on pricing of Apple products in India. As per the deal, Flipkart will receive the supply of latest iPhones mobiles directly from Apple.
In addition, BGR has reported that Apple will still be in partnership with Infibeam as the other online partner. Infibeam has been Apple’s internet reseller in past years to distribute iPhones and iPads. However, Flipkart is listed as the only authorized online reseller to sell all Apple product lineup- iPhone, iPad and Mac on Apple India’s official catalogue.
The sale for iPhone 7 will commence from October 7 where following variants will be available for purchase:
32GB variant – Rs 60,000
128GB variant – Rs 70,000
256GB variant – Rs 80,000
32GB variant – Rs 72,000
128GB variant – Rs 82,000
256GB variant – Rs 92,000
