Apple To Shake Up International Sales To Make India Its Own Region

Apple Inc. is reshuffling the management of its international operations to put a greater focus on India, according to people familiar with the matter, a sign of the nation’s growing importance.

The shift will mark the first time India has become a dedicated sales region at Apple, which has seen a surge in demand in the country. It will give India greater prominence within the tech giant, according to people, who asked not to be identified because the move was unannounced.

Apple is making the move after the recent retirement of Vice President Hugues Asseman, responsible for India, the Middle East, Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Africa. With his departure, the iPhone manufacturer is promoting its India boss, who reported to Asseman. That executive, Ashish Chowdhary, will now report directly to Michael Fenger, Apple’s head of product sales.

A company spokesman declined to comment.

The company posted record sales in India in its most recent quarter, even though its overall sales fell 5%. Apple has launched an online store for the region and plans to open its first retail stores in the country later this year. On the last conference call, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said the company has “a great deal of value in the market” and compared the current status of its work in India to the early years in China.

“We’re essentially taking what we learned years ago in China and how we’re scaling into China and bringing that to fruition,” he said. China currently generates around 75 billion US dollars per year for Apple, making it the company’s largest sales region after America and Europe.

India not only serves as a sales engine for Apple, but is also becoming increasingly important for the company’s product development. Major suppliers are moving to the region, and Apple is working with manufacturing partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, also known as Foxconn, to build new iPhone manufacturing facilities in the country, Bloomberg News reported.

The recent changes will affect Apple’s management structure, but not the way regional sales are reported in its public financial results. In these statements, the company includes India as part of its Europe category, along with the Middle East and Africa. It also breaks down four other regions: the Americas, Greater China, Japan, and the rest of Asia Pacific.

Asseman’s departure is part of a wave of executives who have left the company in recent months. Apple’s vice president of subscription services resigned earlier this year, and its cloud chief plans to leave next month. Last year, top executives from industrial design, procurement, parts of software and hardware engineering, data protection, information systems and the online shop announced their departure.

Asseman, a company veteran of more than two decades, divided his time between Apple’s London office and its headquarters in Cupertino, California. He started out as a marketing manager handling the Mac and iPod lines. He later led retail teams before becoming Apple’s iPhone sales manager for Europe and other international markets in 2011. Asseman landed his last role in 2015 and retired late last year.

Apple’s sales and international teams are split between Fenger and another VP, Doug Beck. Fenger oversees hardware, services and enterprise sales globally, while Beck oversees the healthcare, education and government segments. Both executives report to Cook, but neither is featured alongside the other direct deputies to the CEO on Apple’s website.

(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated feed.)