Not only digital payment, Apple eyes Maps and Music industry in India

Global tech giant Apple treats India as the hottest market in the world and has many services including digital payment solution- Apple Pay, and India Maps, in the broader scheme of things to start within the country.

In an interview to Livemint, Apple senior vice-president Eddy Cue said the tech firm is all set to launch Apple Pay in India among many things in the near future.

“Apple Pay is something that we definitely want in India. The challenge with payment mechanisms is that there isn’t really a lot of global scale. You deal with individual markets at a time... but India is one of those markets where we hope to bring Apple Pay to,” said Cue.

The company will look to partner and integrate its payments service with established players in India like Paytm, Cue added, who is with Apple for almost 30 years heading company’s Internet software and services business. Apple Pay service is available in only 21 countries. The full pay services are available in the US only.

Its competitor, Samsung also launched similar service Samsung Pay this year in India, which offered extensive payment options with the capabilities to store credit/debit card within the app.

The company also wants to have a vibrant ecosystem of developers. The iPhone maker wants to have market share in India, where it already has a manufacturing facility. The company is also eyeing Maps segment.

“Maps is something that we started a long time ago and when I took it over, one of the things we decided is that we wanted to make our Maps really best in class. One of the areas that we thought was a great opportunity to invest in was here. We now have over 4,000 people working on Apple Maps,” he added.

Apple also sees great opportunity in India music industry. It recently tied up with Indian musician AR Rahman to set up two MAC Labs.  “The music industry here has either been free or there’s nothing much more than free. If you look at it, almost all the music scene is related to Bollywood because there is economic value there. And I think that’s great, we can help that. We sell those movies on a global scale, we sell them here,” added Cue.

Apple has already started initial production of its iPhone SE model in Bengaluru and has also started shipping the models to local customers. It also plans to expand sales in smaller cities.

In February, the government of Karnataka had announced Apple’s proposal to start manufacturing operations in Bengaluru. At present, the phones are being manufactured by Wistron, a Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

Last year, Apple also launched a so-called app accelerator in Bengaluru, as part of a push to tap the country’s developer ecosystem. Last week, Apple launched two new so-called Mac Labs in Chennai and Mumbai.