iPhone sales boom puts India in Apple's top five countries

(Image credit: Apple)

India has taken the fifth spot in the list of the largest iPhone markets for Apple for the first time.

The news comes after India took the fifth spot by overtaking Germany and France for iPhone sales in the June quarter. The fifth spot means that India now only sits behind the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and China.

India has become a key part of the world for Apple thanks to rapid growth in the country. It's also opened new stores in the country while some manufacturing partners are also moving some of their factories to the country.

Indian focus

The fifth-spot news comes thanks to a Counterpoint Research report that was elaborated on by CNBC.

"India contributed close to 4% of all iPhone sales in the second quarter," CNBC reports Counterpoint Research as saying. "The firm was not able to disclose the exact number of iPhone sales but said they grew 50% year-on-year."

Apple opened stores in Delhi and Mumbai earlier this year, with huge crowds greeting the arrival of both. Apple also has an online store presence in the country to help people buy products even if they aren't in either of those cities.

"Apple’s growth story in India has been a combination of the company’s 'overall strategy focusing on distribution and affordability,' Ankit Malhotra, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC via email." The analyst went on to say that 'the first industry-wide factor is the growth in the premium market in India which Apple has taken advantage of.”

Apple is of course making the best iPhones ever right now, and the iPhone 15 lineup is sure to help drive sales later this year. That newfound Indian premium market will no doubt serve Apple well as it continues its expansion into the region.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.