The trials and tribulations of doing business in India | Hacker News Reader

The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

economist.com

35 pointsboynamedsue54 comments

Bad title, it's just about how Apple can't get a store in India, was expecting a story of setting up business in India.

Agree.

Thanks very much for saving my time.

While I like Apple products, India is right to deny "dumping" of products that would be considered e-waste in the sourcing country.

The article quotes the cheapest smartphones in stores as being ~1000 rupees. That's about ~15 USD at the retail level.

How does one go about sourcing that sort of low end phone? If I could order 100 of almost any smartphone at that price I would be very excited.

Cheapest smartphone start around 4000, while popular price point is 6-10000. No one sells it for 1000, one company promised it, but never launched.

Also, didnt the company Micromax I believe start to gain a big market there? I haven't followed much on it yet but I know them and a bunch of home grown brands have started taking over as well

Upon googling "micromax market share", the first article that comes up was written on March 16th, 2016 [1]. That shows a dwindling market share. Other articles share same opinion. Although, the company has funded a new campaign[2] and the new Canvas series of smartphones from them look promising while maintaining a low price point.

[1]: http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-how-did-micromax-lose-n... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c62z2bIZfC0

PS: Apart from a handful of friends who own Micromax phones, I have no interest in the company whatsoever.

Although it might not be to your standards, I've purchased a brand new smart phone for $12 off of Amazon.

How was that experience? Can I ask what sort of OS it was running? Did it have a camera?

It has worked well so far, as a device to test my Android apps on. It does have a camera.

Note that this is limited to Apple's direct sales business model (aka selling phones through its own stores). Apple are free to sell through other retailers like LG, Xiaomi, and several other retailers do. But they like to have total and absolute control over all aspects of their products. Unfortunately, in this case, they have come across someone else who likes to exercise pretty strong control over aspects of the economy itself.

I think the best thing for Apple to do would be to sell their products through a partnership with Reliance or another company that has a lot of stores in India. It's not like they don't partner with carriers and such in the US.

Exactly. Apple is used to having everyone roll-over and let them steamroll over local laws but that's not gonna happen here. The market is still open, they are selling products in millions.

Basically you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India.

Not sure if this is something Apple is ready for.

How did you conclude based on this article that you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?

Those of us with on-the-ground experience in India and without a vested interest in trying to whitewash the business and governmental environment there know it to be true.

> you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?

Not everything, but almost everything that has to do with Government. I had to pay bribe even to get my Passport, driver's license and police clearance certificate.

How long ago was this (especially the passport)?

Not sure this is true for many parts of India.

As a foreigner living in India I wish I could throw money at someone to make the process of securing documents like police clearance easier. That's simply not the case though.

I have no doubt that corruption is rampant but your examples don't square with my experience.

Getting a passport/driver's license is different from companies (Apple) asking to operate in a certain way. They deal with the highest levels in the government (Prime Minister, Finance Minister) and it is absurd to suggest that the government would ask Apple to bribe them. India has a set of rules on how foreign companies should operate and while it might be unpopular, it is still a rule.

I don't know what time period you are talking about, because I got all of those (except police clearance, I didn't need that) in the last 5 years and none of them required any bribes. There were inefficiencies and frustrating bureaucracy, but no bribing was necessary.

Agreed. Considering I've been there a few tiems myself. An example I can give confirming this is that I've had a freinds uncle who had the money to afford a flat in Mumbai but the owner of the flat property didnt want to give permission. Anwyays it took a lot of "negotations" for that to go through.

How is that bribery? Sounds like negotiation tactics.

his use of flat owner is confusing, but in this context it does refer to the flat owner directly - it refers to the owner of the flat property, which would be analogous to a one-man co-op board in the USA.

Correct, sorry I wasnt that clear and thanks for clearing that up since I was writing this from my phone.

Thanks, that makes sense now.

I'm not sure even bribing would help in this case. The government is pretty serious about the manufacturing push.

I'm quite happy that Apple is not allowed to dump refurbished crap here. They sell enough phones already. They can continue that or they can start manufacturing here and open their store.

While there is tons of corruption in India; this isn't an example of it. It's just another example of a policy that doesn't gel well with the western business models. This isn't something that you can brush aside with a bribe, it's a policy created for a reason. Not to extract bribe money.

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