Days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi government asserted that Apple must abide by the 30% Local Sourcing Norm if it wants to open retail stores in the country; the government has rejected the Cupertino-based company’s proposal to sell the refurbished iPhones in the country.
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“We are not in favour of any company selling used phones in the company, however, certified they may be.” commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a press conference.
During his almost weeklong visit to the country earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook had said that the company would like to sell the used iPhones in India in order to make the smartphone available at a much lower price to the local consumers.
“First of all, we would never ‘dump’ anything, this in virtually all countries in the world we have a process by which a phone that’s been used by the first owner or is taken back and made to be new, if you will, and a warranty is placed on that, just like a warranty for a new phone. And it’s sold for a more affordable price and that happens in several countries. What we want to do is do the act of bringing it back to this pristine level, we want to do that in India for the Indian market. We may have to bring in some phones from other markets in order to fuel the supply chain if you will. But the act of bringing them to pristine conditions, we want to do that in this country.” Cook had said.
Several domestic smartphone manufacturers including Micromax had raised their voice against the selling of used iPhones in the country; stressing it would be like Dump in India and not Make in India; which will badly hurt local vendors.
“We took a line that we would not mind waiving the 30% local sourcing norm for Apple. Now, the finance ministry has taken a different position. We will examine the matter in consultation with the finance ministry.”
India government’s decision must have come as a huge setback for the tech giant; which is going through a tough time following the record decline in iPhone sales in the last quarter.
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