iPhone 7 news update: iPhone losing to Android in India

Apple has dominated the global smartphone market for years. Despite acquiring a lucrative share in the U.S. and Chinese markets, the Cupertino-based tech giant seems to be losing ground to other firms in one of the world's biggest consumer markets for smartphone — India.

India is clearly ditching iPhones for Android-based devices despite Apple's persistent efforts to upset the status quo. Recent sales figures reveal that iPhone sales in the subcontinent has shrunk by 35 percent, 9 to 5 Mac reported. From 1.2 million units sold in the second quarter last year, the Silicon Valley titan only managed to ship 800,000 phones to India this year in the same quarter. To reverse iPhone's declining fortunes in the country, the company unveiled iPhone SE — the cheapest model to date — but still failed to capture a significant share in India's large mobile device market.

Moreover, a study by Strategy Analytics showed that Apple's sales figures only account for 2.5 percent of all the smartphones shipped to the subcontinent in the second quarter of 2016. The report also showed that the handset market in India is growing an average of 19 percent every year. However, Apple is still lagging behind Android's indisputable sales performance with a hard-to-beat 97 percent share in the mobile operating system.

"Android dominates the India smartphone market and looks unbeatable right now, due to its deep portfolio of hardware partners, extensive distribution channels, and a wide range of low-cost apps like Gmail," said Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston as quoted by CXO Today.

Nonetheless, Apple chief Tim Cook remains undaunted. To woo Indian consumers away from Android, the tech firm is setting up a center in the city of Hyderabad to create a supportive environment for India-based app developers for iOS. While this sounds a positive development, Indian mobile phone users remain wary of iPhone's high price.

Meanwhile, latest data on Taiwan exports surprise tech analysts who expect further market decline for iPhones. For 17 months, iPhone sales had been slacking largely due to overall falling demand for smartphones. Recent figures reveal that the export of electronic components vital for manufacturing iPhone handsets has risen 5.7 percent in July as Apple prepares to launch the latest addition to its iPhone lineup later this year, Times of India reported.