“Particularly keen on India”: Tim Cook notes India’s value amidst record earnings

Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer has definitively underlined India’s importance again, during an earnings call for Q1 2025, as Apple begins a new financial year on a very strong note. The company has posted quarterly revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent year over year, and this is despite a margin dip in net iPhone sales in the quarter ending December (when compared with the same quarter an year earlier. Mac sales see a strong year-on-year growth, as does the iPad portfolio , while Services which includes Apple Music and iCloud, continues to deliver.

“Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up 4 percent from a year ago. We were thrilled to bring customers our best-ever lineup of products and services during the holiday season. Through the power of Apple silicon, we’re unlocking new possibilities for our users with Apple Intelligence, which makes apps and experiences even better and more personal,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

In this moment, Tim Cook also confirmed that Apple Intelligence will be available in more languages in April, expected to coincide with the release of iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, expanding to include French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese, as well as localised English to Singapore and India. Earlier this week, the iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3 and macOS Sequoia 15.3 updates brought significant improvements to Apple Intelligence, including refining the AI generated notification summaries.

Tim Cook reemphasised that Apple is “particularly keen on India”. Turns out, India has set a December-quarter record in terms of sales for Apple this past month.

“The iPhone was the top selling model in India for the quarter,” he confirmed. This momentum shouldn’t come as a surprise. Following the iPhone 16 series keynote in September past, Apple surprised its Android smartphone competition, by significantly reducing prices of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, compared with their predecessors the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. By bucking a trend of generational inflation, it forced phone makers including Samsung to respond with price corrections and bundled schemes, for their phones.

Tim Cook knows the importance of this impetus. “It’s the second largest smartphone market in the world and the third largest for PCs and tablets, and so there’s a huge market, and we have very modest share in these markets, and so I think there’s lots of upside there, and that’s just one of the emerging markets,” he said about India.

Earlier this month, Apple released the Apple Store app in India, giving it a wider online retail footprint in the country alongside the Apple India online store. All of Apple’s products and services are listed on the app. Contextual suggestions for a shopping experience will be key, with the company insisting customers using the Apple Store app will be able to take advantage of personalised recommendations, product customisations and offers including bank discounts, cash backs, and no-cost EMIs, as they browse or shop.

Cook has again underlined Apple’s intent to widen the physical retail presence as well, with more Apple Stores set to open in more locations in India. “We’ve announced that we’re going to open four new stores,” he noted. Though Apple has not officially communicated location pins on the map just yet, Delhi and Mumbai could see a new store each, with Bengaluru and Pune in the mix as well.

During the earnings call, Kevan Parekh, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Apple, mentioned India’s tech start-up Zomato among the list of companies worldwide that are deploying Apple’s Mac portfolio as standard computing devices for their workforce. “Zomato, a leading food ordering and delivery company in India, has deployed thousands of Macs across their workforce to foster innovation,” Parekh said.