iPhone: Game-changing the world, just not India

In 2007, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a packed developers conference that he was proud to announce three revolutionary products - a wide screen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough Internet communications device. As the crowd applauded, Jobs kept repeating the the three products over and over again until it became clear. “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices! This is one device! And we are calling it iPhone!”, said Jobs.

This was probably the most iconic announcement of the mobile phone industry as we know it today.

The iPhone went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007, at 6:00 pm local time, and hundreds of customers lined up outside the stores nationwide. The passionate reaction to the launch of the iPhone resulted in sections of the media christening it the ‘ Jesus phone ’. The original iPhone was made available in the UK, France, and Germany in November 2007, and Ireland and Austria in the spring of 2008.

On July 11, 2008, Apple released the iPhone 3G in twenty-two countries. In an attempt to gain a wider market, Apple retained the 8 GB iPhone 3G at a lower price point. When Apple introduced the iPhone 4, the 3GS became the less expensive model.

Apple sold 6.1 million original iPhone units over five quarters . Recorded sales have been growing steadily thereafter, and by the end of fiscal year 2010, a total of 73.5 million iPhones were sold .

By 2010/2011, the iPhone has a market share of barely 4% of all cellphones, but Apple still pulls in more than 50% of the total profit that global cellphone sales generate. Approximately 6.4 million iPhones are active in the U.S. alone.

In India however, the iPhone is struggling to gain ground having been held back by a mixture of high prices, a lack of appropriate infrastructure and stiff competition from other touch control phones at lower price points. A touch screen phone in India can be bought for around 6000 INR while the lowest priced iPhone is 20,000 with a subscriber lock. There have been allegations that Apple is not really serious about the Indian market, but there continues to be massive interest in Apple products and the launch of the new iPhone later today is generating a lot of buzz in India’s social media circles.

Here is a Timeline of the history of Apple iPhone

Apple iPhone on Dipity .