A few years ago, an US blogger was slammed for saying, “Indians are too poor to buy an iPhone.” Indians take the iPhone seriously. Do they buy iPhones? Yes, definitely.
In 2020 alone, Apple reported shipping some 3.2 million units of iPhone to India. The question today is not whether Indian buy iPhones or not, it’s why do they buy them? A Reddit user asked the same question and we dug up the internet for answers.
Well, it turns out there are several reasons, including we love selling our kidneys.
1. “I think it’s just a representation of how the western world standards have us by the throat. Same goes for any fashion based brand that does not have any resale value. But I’ve seen some really smart rich people who buy luxury items like Rolex, AP and Patek Phillippe which goes up in value.” – SugaanthMohan
2. “I had bought my first iPhone in 2016 (iPhone 7) and has lasted 5 years. Because its still going strong, I want to switch to iPhone 13, but questioning whether I need to. Had Windows and Android phones before that. All of them lasted about 1-2 years before lagging or some other issue.” – 143AamAadmi
3. “iPhones tends to last longer. Like wayyyy longer. I’ve used flagship or a tier down androids till 2017 and had the urge to switch every 2 year or so. It’s been around 4 years on my X and I haven’t even thought of getting a new one.” – Paper_Nap
4. “If someone has the money to afford it why not?” – kapjain
Reason why 90% Indians buy an iPhone #Apple pic.twitter.com/qvDxL9kP9W
— Sir Bumraaaaaaah!!!!! (@Ibleed_sarcasm) September 15, 2021
5. “I use iPhone only due to its long and quick security updates. Almost all android devices don’t release quick security updates and don’t support many years.” – m_a_g_g_y
6. “I have been using iPhone 8 Plus since 2018 and so far I haven’t faced any issue, previously i was using Android phone and in 2 years microphone stopped working, audio jack gone. Apart from that android phones doesn’t even capacity to load 1k+ messages on WhatsApp, my friend is in trading business he specially bought iphone for this kind of load capacity.” – BigBusiness121
7. “On a different note, iPhones retains their value for years. So one can buy it for 1L and sell it for 80K next year and putting just 20K every year to upgrade to the latest phone. This doesn’t work for Android as even after a year the price drops to more than 50%.” – PresenceSalt
8. “Reason you ask? If you’re looking for stability iPhone is a no brainer.” – charismaticEVIL
9. “You think your average businessman of 50 year old listens to iTunes and stuff, no, he just uses it to call others.” – Icy_Bath4750
10. “For the same reason we buy Lamborghini cars, when we know they are not suitable for Indian roads.” – k7archi
Agree. One example would be iPhones.
— R ❁ (@Rbnhd__) August 14, 2021
The only reason people buy iPhones in India is to flex, to gain status in their social group.
I mean iPhone is not a bad phone by any means.
But, Indians' motive behind buying it is the status symbol, not the features.