 "iPad, iPhone sales in India help Apple shore up numbers")
Global Electronics major Apple Inc's financial results for the third quarter of the financial year 2014 may have disappointed the Wall Street but it shows the growing importance of India as a market for the company.
Apple said that the sales of iPad, one of the company's flagship products rose by 45% in India during the last quarter. The overall sales of the iPad dropped to 13.2 million from 16.3 million sold in previous quarter of 2014 and 14.6 million iPads sold in same quarter of last year. Middle East and China are also other regions where sales of iPad bucked the declining trend.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook described iPad sales as "very bifurcated" - they continue to grow at 50% or above in emerging markets such as the Middle East and China, but in developed countries like the United States, the "market is weaker." This is in line with the overall trend for tablet sales across the globe.
Similar was the case with the company's flagship product iPhone. The sales of the mobile phone rose 55% in the BRIC (Brazil Russia India and China). However, during the quarter, the iPhone sales rose only around 13% in terms of units sold against the same quarter last year. It's growth was helped by demand from Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the company.
Apple Inc posted a smaller-than-expected six% rise in quarterly revenue on Tuesday, after selling 35.2 million iPhones in an increasingly competitive smartphone market.
The company, which derives most of its business from the high-end mobile device, reported sales of $37.4 billion in its fiscal third quarter ended June, falling short of Wall Street's expectations for about $38 billion. Gross margins were better than expected at 39.4%, up from 36.9% in the year-ago quarter, primarily due to cheaper product costs and strong sales of the Mac.