'i'Fans can finally rejoice - the iPhone 6, Apple's bigger, better, thinner new offering, will hit the shops in India tomorrow (Friday) - actually midnight tonight (Thursday night) - a little more than a month after it was unveiled at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, US on September 9.
Pre-orders, say distributors and retailers, have been unprecedented, numbering more than 25,000 pieces. Apple, which has stepped up its retail distribution in India this year, has offered pre-booking of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus through its network of stores and multi-brand chains such as Reliance Digital and Croma, and online on Infibeam. Buyers are also being enticed with EMIs as low as Rs2,000. In China, in contrast, pre-orders reached 1 million in the first six hours.
This is also the first time that Apple will have midnight sales of its new launch, a global practice and retailers are pulling out all stops to ensure it goes off smoothly and everyone who pre-booked an iPhone 6/iPhone 6 Plus gets their hand on it on day one itself.
At Infibeam, for instance, all the senior managers and even the company CEO have been drafted to deliver the new phones which have been ordered from tier II towns like Gorakhpur, Patna and even Hudhud-hit Vishakhapatnam, says Shekhar Singh, manager corporate communications.
"There is huge anticipation about the new iPhone," says Manish Bhandari, manager at the Imagine store, a premium Apple retailer, at New Delhi's Select Citywalk mall.
"Many of our customers have booked the phone with us by paying Rs10,000 and a few other stores just to ensure that they get the iPhone 6 on the first day itself." The store, says Bhandari, is asking the mall management to permit it to remain open until 2 in the morning.
Globally, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which went on sale on September 19, sold 10 million units within three days - better than the 9 million iPhone 5s/5c phones the company sold on the first weekend of their launch, says Neil Shah, analyst at technology market research firm Counterpoint. However, Shah believes that the iPhone hype is greater among the business and media than with customers where it remains concentrated in urban pockets.
Interestingly, says Shah, Apple is launching the iPhone 6/6 Plus in September to ride the Diwali festive season where Indians are more inclined to make big purchases. The last launch of the iPhone 5 came in December.
However, the iPhone 6 and 6 plus come at a higher premium in India than they do in the US. Compared to the Rs53,500-Rs 80,500 price range for the iPhone 6/6 Plus in India, in the US, it is available for much less at between $199 (when bundled with a carrier) and $949.
Apple has sold 1 milion iphones in India in the last fiscal year.
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