India is huge market for Apple to ignore, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

India continues to be the world’s fastest growing economy due to stronger consumer demands, a fact that the Union Minister of Electronics and IT believes cannot be ignored by even Apple as well.

In an interview with English daily, Union Minister of electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said that India is a huge market for Apple, which the Cupertino-based technology giant will not be able to ignore.

“India is a huge market for Apple, they will need to look towards the Indian market,” he said.

Last week, India agreed on tax concessions to Apple to the condition of increasing local value addition over a period of time. The country offered to allow Apple to import mobile handset components intended for use in local manufacturing tax free, reported Reuters.

Among a set of tax concessions, Apple had also sought a 15-years tax holiday for all components that it would import for setting up a manufacturing facility in India.

A panel of ministries rejected that demand and has offered a phased programme to increase the share of local production in the manufacturing, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and IT had said. Apple has agreed to increase local share in production over a period of time, but there was a difference between the plans of the two sides, she said.

Apple tends to expand its contractor manufacturer’s facility in the country, Prasad told reporters this month. When asked on further updates on Apple demands in the recent interview, he said, “ We are in dialogue with Apple and once the nature of exchange is formalised, we shall come with a structured response.”

(with inputs from Reuters)