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March 8, 2008

stores

Reliance drags Apple retail to India; hints at a scary future

Posted Mar. 8, ’08, 10:02 AM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Apple » Stores

Reliance iStoreFinally, someone has taken note of the severe shortage of retail locations where one can buy Apple products from, specially Macs, in India—and it isn’t Apple themselves. The company that decided to cash in on the opportunity created by this void is Reliance Industries, one of the richest in the Indian economy.

The Mukesh Ambani controlled behemoth has entered into an exclusive partnership with Apple, the first of its kind, to open up a chain of iStores all over the country. Taking cues from Apple’s own widely successful retail stores, these stores will feature Apple’s entire range of products, an aesthetically designed environment (no shiny glass stairways though), Apple trained staff, and a dedicated tech support counter called ResQ, not unlike the Genius Bar in Apple Stores.

Having already launched two such stores—one each in Bangalore and Hyderabad—the company plans to have a total of sixty stores up and running by August 2009. These stores will cover about twenty major cities in the country, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, which are expected to be accounted for within the next few months.

If you’ve been paying attention, you must know that this is wonderfully good news for yours truly and for the legions of other Apple fans in this huge (and I mean huge) country. As soon as they open shop in Kolkata, I’m going to be first in line to let myself in (though I’ve never yet seen a queue forming in front of a store for anything, unlike Apple Stores in the States where people seem to be intent on bringing out the camping gear every chance they get).

But even though I’m excited about this development, it’s scary to think of what this might imply for the future. Reliance also happens to be in the telecommunications industry in India (among a list which includes pretty much every industry that exists) and just the thought of Apple partnering with them to give their network exclusive rights to carry the iPhone makes me want to cry (well, not necessarily, but you get the point).

Unlike in the U.S.A., we (thankfully enough) don’t have the system of phones being tied to specific networks in India. Except for Blackberry, which bucked the trend by choosing Airtel and Vodafone as the jointly exclusive carriers of its phones, no other company has ever entered into such partnerships.

However, Apple seems to be intent on pulling another Blackberry on us and there’s little we can do about it. But if there is one network in the country that they should not opt for, it’s Reliance. The reception is poor almost everywhere you go, the coverage is shoddy, they do not cover the whole country, and have a relatively small customer base (compared to the likes of Airtel).

Therefore, as much as we appreciate Apple making inroads into the Indian market with Reliance at the helm, we would prefer it if they restricted the love affair to just retail. Ideally, the iPhone should be launched without any exclusive tie-ups in the country, but even if that isn’t a possibility, Apple should skim over Reliance when looking at possible candidates.

Of course, the above applies only if Apple ever intends to bring the device to these shores and that seems to be a distant dream as of right now, what with the Tim Cooks relegating the possibility of a release to “one day”. Ah well, one thing at a time, I guess.


7 Comments

VMR said:

So far, every carrier Apple has partnered with has been the largest (or nearly so) in their market. If Reliance really is as small-time as you say in the mobile realm, I doubt you have to worry about Apple picking them when the time comes. Besides which, they're using CDMA, and thus far the only iPhones are GSM.

March 8, 2008 10:59 AM
Prateek said:

The silver lining (to save the iPhone + Reliance combo) is that Reliance Digital (the one opening the iStores) is a part of the Mukesh Ambani group whereas Reliance Telecomm is under Anil Ambani. Last I heard, the two weren't getting along very well.

March 8, 2008 5:06 PM
Adrian said:

That's great news as a brand activation service provider its really lip smacking. Besides of course as a consumer i will get the tech support i badly need to answer my daughters IPOD queries

March 8, 2008 8:28 PM
sunil samuel said:

God save India from Reliance!!!
It's a strange combination of our dear apple and the dreadfully "design-lacking" reliance stores....let's keep our fingers crossed on this one

March 8, 2008 9:32 PM
Ankit Soni said:

well, there are 2 reliances, if its the mukesh run reliance tht is running the stores, than one hardle need worry about reliance communications being the carrier, since it is run by the other brother Anil, and both are rivals.

But I'm still worried about this. Reliance, as anyone who has had any experience knows, has terrible service and customer support.

March 9, 2008 5:56 AM
AppleIndia said:

Reliance Infocomm/Telecomm is not under the Mukesh umbrella, but rather his bother Anil - Thus, the possibility of Mukesh who brngs the iStores with Reliance Infocomm/Temecomm may be slightly remote !

March 9, 2008 10:52 AM
Hemant said:

Please don't forget that Reliance Telecom has a very very small GSM network and 87% revenue comes from CDMA. The Iphone works on GSM and as always Apple will tie up with the largest GSM network. So most likely it will be Vodaphone, not because it is the largest but they have worked with Apple and have a good relationship. ALso, AIrtel is the largest customer for Black berry.

March 9, 2008 8:56 PM

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