What you need to know
- Apple confirmed a new Indian Apple Store will open next year.
- It had previously been prevented from doing so because of local laws.
- The White House helped work out the kinks with the Indian government.
Apple's recent shareholder meeting saw the company confirm that an Apple Store will open in India next year. Apple has wanted to do exactly that for a long time now, but local laws have made it difficult. So what changed?
According to a Fox Business and Business Insider report, Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that the move was made possible after the US administration got involved.
The issue was that opening an own-brand store in India would previously have meant that 30% of product production would need to happen in the country unless Apple gook on a local partner. Apple, predictably, didn't want to do that. And while Apple's suppliers have started to move some iPhone production to India, that 30% mark just isn't going to happen.
"I see India as a huge opportunity for us, for years we could not enter there unless we entered there with a partner [...] and we did not want to do that, we wanted to maintain control of our brand and so forth," Cook reportedly said. So in stepped the White House. "The administration worked on this with the Indian government and that change has been made," he went on to confirm.
Cook and Trump have an "unlikely" relationship, with the Apple CEO seemingly getting plenty out of it in return for tours of Mac Pro factories.
