It was an aha! moment to spot India's leading industrialist at the service at St John's church ahead of Trump's inauguration, and then to see him heading to US Capitol Hill Rotunda for the inauguration in the company of the Big 4 - Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google and Mark Zuckerburg of Meta/Facebook.
Foxconn's business in India has grown to over $10 billion till 2024.
Around 300 athletes were expected to compete in four snow sports -- ski mountaineering, alpine skiing, snowboard, and Nordic skiing -- in the games, which had been due to be held from February 22 to 25.
Apple and Samsung are international players and should work as a team with domestic companies to transform India into a global powerhouse: IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Apple was a fringe player in all key categories like smartphones, notebooks, and tablets till recently. But with the last quarter's record-breaking performance, the brand has established itself in the country's price-sensitive consumer electronics market.
It had requested the government to grant it 15 years of duty-free import of components to assemble its iPhones in the country, sharing a road map to slowly indigenise products.
The Indian Finance Ministry has instructed its officials to refrain from using AI tools and apps like ChatGPT and DeepSeek on government devices, citing concerns over data confidentiality. This move comes amidst global discussions regarding the potential security risks associated with AI tools and follows similar actions by countries like Australia and Italy, which have restricted access to DeepSeek due to privacy concerns. The directive highlights the growing awareness of the potential security implications of AI technology in government environments.
EPS' acceptance of Amit Shah's proposal for an electoral alliance with the BJP is being interpreted to mean how the AIADMK has signed up the NDA national leader as a junior partner. Not many have appreciated EPS for this strategic move that has now forced the BJP to play second fiddle to the AIADMK. This has meant that the BJP has buried its ambitions of capturing power in Tamil Nadu now, and is willing to wait until after the 2029 Lok Sabha polls, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
"We are investing in India... We've already launched an app accelerator centre. That's on top of working with the channel and looking at expanding our go-to-market in general," Cook said during the company's third quarter earnings call on Tuesday.
A list of lesser-travelled destinations in India that you must explore this year!
Following in Apple's footsteps, Alphabet - Google's parent company - is in advanced talks with Foxconn to manufacture Pixel smartphones in Tamil Nadu, an industrial state which will also double up as drone-manufacturing hub for the US tech giant soon. According to a state government release, officials from Google will soon visit Chennai to meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin to hold discussion on manufacturing of Google Pixel near Chennai.
Rising prevalence of work-from-home and e-learning is driving sales of notebooks and tablets for most brands, but Apple's superior performance has more to do with its product quality.
The new iMac, two iPads and iPhone 12 and 12 Mini will be open for ordering starting April 30, just like in the US, the UK, China and Japan.
'India needs many more job creators, both in manufacturing and services, to make it big.' 'For that, the red carpet must be rolled out fully and for all investors without holding back,' suggests Nivedita Mookerji.
'PM Modi would have swept the elections in Kashmir after notebandi but then he scrapped Article 370 so all his good work went down the drain.'
Indian smartphone sales, traditionally dominated by the entry and mid-range segments, are set to change as high-end and super-premium devices capture consumer attention. The premium category is expected to grow by more than 20 per cent in calendar year (CY) 2024 compared to the previous year. While the overall smartphone market is expected to w
'We don't have to compete with Maharashtra or Gujarat. We have to now start thinking about how we compete with the United States or China.'
Seven months after it was launched in India, Apple is expected to start manufacturing the iPhone 13 at the Foxconn plant in Sriperumbudur near Chennai from April, according to sources. The phones will be for both the domestic and export market. The production of the iPhone 13 in the Chennai plant was meant to start from January but had to be postponed after Apple suspended production following protests in December by women workers about food poisoning. An Apple spokesperson did not respond to an e-mail query.
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An upcoming book by investigative journalist Chitra Subramaniam claims that senior Indian bureaucrats "tutored" Bofors officials in a secret meeting in 1987 on how to absolve then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of all blame in the infamous bribery scandal. The book, "Boforsgate," details how the meeting was held to cover up the alleged Rs 64 crore bribe in a Rs 1,437 crore deal for Howitzer guns, and how Indian officials provided advice on concealing information from investigators. Subramaniam's revelations are based on documents provided to her by the Swedish head of police investigating the Bofors case.
Apple Inc is expected to produce iPhones worth $12 billion (freight on board value) in India during 2023-24, according to discussions between the company's vendors and the government. This would account for around 12 per cent of Apple's global iPhone production-higher than the earlier plan of shifting around 9 per cent of the total to India by FY24, which is the third year of the PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme.
Still, the earliest India will get to experience Apple online will be early 2020 and the company's first fully-owned signature store should be up around 2022 -- almost two decades after it had opened its first store worldwide, writes Nivedita Mookerji.
Cheaper ripoffs was how China powered its way as an economic superpower but hitherto the tech realm had remained out of bounds. With DeepSeek's AI model the West, it seemed, was about to lose its competitive edge in cutting edge generative AI technology. And this is what is causing deep furrows in the forehead of tech titans in Silicon Valley.
The US-based company, in collaboration with partners like Wistron and Foxconn, had recently started assembling iPhone 11 in India.
It seems Team India is balancing pre-tournament preparations with exploring the vibrant city.
The company posted quarterly revenue of $50.6 billion.
He noted that the infrastructure in India has come 'quite a ways' since Apple began to put a lot of energy in the Indian market 'because of their leadership and so forth.'
Whether it's Carrefour, Ford, or other foreign majors, they are ready to adjust their strategies and design their plans in a way that would address the Indian consumption story.
To promote localisation of manufacturing and reduce its import bill, the government increased basic customs duty on mobile handsets - from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said the company's share in India "is quite low relative to the size of the opportunity" and setting up retail stores in the future in the country will be a great initiative. Apple launched the Apple Store online in India on September 23, offering Apple's full range of products and support directly to customers across the country for the first time. "If you take India as an example, we doubled our business last quarter compared to the year ago quarter. But our absolute level of business there is still quite low relative to the size of the opportunity. "And you can kind of take that and go around the world and find other markets that are like that as well," Cook said on Wednesday in the company's Q1 2021 results earnings call.
A sneak peak into 14 gadgets released recently: four in India and the rest worldwide.
Tech major is in discussion with film-makers, sport administrators to enter the fast-growing sectors.
Making the Pixel 8 in India will not necessarily bring the price down -- witness iPhones made in India that are more expensive than those in the US and Dubai.
iPhone, which accounts for just 3% of sales in India's 100 million-plus annual smartphone market, plans to partner an existing player
Paving way for iPhone maker Apple to open its own stores India, the government on Monday relaxed FDI norms by giving a three-year exemption from local sourcing to foreign players in single-brand retail and a further five-year relaxation for 'state-of-art' and 'cutting-edge' technology.
It's time India re-visited its Western alliances for the attitude and approach that the West reserves for the nation when it comes to security cooperation of the kind that they might not have visualised outside of China, India's bug-bear, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Apple has priced songs at about Rs 12 with latest Bollywood albums, like Dabangg 2, being offered at Rs 96.
The delay of the SE 2, billed as the cheapest iPhone and tentatively priced below Rs 40,000 in India, puts the brakes on the tech major's plans for a revival. With the supply chain at its largest manufacturer Foxconn in disarray, as it is struggling to operate in China because of the COVID-19 crisis, the postponement was inevitable.
'There is simply too much to watch, read and absorb.' 'Just online consumption (news, entertainment, social media) in India was 2.5 hours a day in November 2024.' 'Add TV (just under 4 hours), other media, and the figure is closer to 7 to 8 hours a day for over one-third of Indians,' points out Vanita Kohli Khandekar.
Till recently, iPhone production in India was limited to older models at a lower price tag. So far, Apple has localised production of five smartphone models - iPhone SE (1st Gen), 6S, 7, XR and 11.
