India gets Macs, iPods; maybe Apple Store

Apple today formed a partnership to bring more of its products to more places India, including a deal for a possible Apple-branded store in the country. The Cupertino-based company brokered a deal with a PC vendor that will bring Macs and iPods into the world's second largest country. Wipro Infotech has joined Apple Computer International to sell Apple's entire range of products in India, including the new MacBook Pro and MacBook, its professional and consumer desktops (Mac Pro, Mac mini, iMac), enterprise solutions (Xserve, XRAID) and its entire iPod line. The deal will allow Apple to leverage Wipro’s robust marketing infrastructure built over two decades in the PC domain and will create newer opportunities for both the companies to address new and existing markets.

Wipro’s strong service & support network is wide spread across India with offices in 24 locations, and its partner network covers more than 200 locations. That infrastructure is supported by strong service network presence in 174 locations across the country.

"We are extremely pleased to partner with Apple, which is well known for its innovative products and solutions," said Ashutosh Vaidya, the Vice President of Wipro Infotech's Personal Computing Division. "Coupled with Wipro’s proven marketing and support infrastructure, this will offer the customers significantly higher value for their investments."

Wipro Infotech is the India, Middle East and Asia Pacific IT Business of Wipro.

Wipro is reportedly creating a new specialized team to address the market for Apple's range of products, and said that the entity will address target enterprise as well as small & medium businesses (SMB) markets.

In 2006, the company launched its low-cost iPod shuffle and Mac mini in India. Some analysts believe that Apple must tap both India and China -- home to the two largest populations in the world -- to continue its phenomenal growth. Last year, HCL Infosystems entered into a strategic alliance with Apple to provide sales and service support for iPods in India with distribution, logistics and service locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune. It also planned to distribute Macs to education and the media, as well as entertainment segments.

Apple retail coming to India?

A recent report says that Reliance Retail is actively negotiating with Apple Inc to bring its high-end Apple Store to India. If successful, the deal will bring an Apple-branded store to only the second country in Asia (after Japan): India will become the sixth country outside the US to have an Apple retail outlet, according to The Financial Express.