Taking a giant stride towards tapping the startup ecosystem in India, Apple is all set to launch a set up what it calls a “design and development” startup accelerator in Bangalore.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said that the new accelerator facility would help iOS developers create innovative apps for the company’s customers globally and the new facility would provide resources to support entrepreneurs.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement, “India is home to one of the most vibrant and entrepreneurial iOS development communities in the world. With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we’re giving developers access to tools which will help them create innovative apps for customers around the world.”
Apple also said that it would work closely with app developers to “hone their skills” and bring them up to speed with the company’s global standards and best practices. The company’s in-house experts would lead briefings and provide one-on-one app reviews for developers while the accelerator would also provide support and guidance on Apple’s programming language Swift.
“Swift enables developers to write safer, more reliable code, save time and create richer app experiences,” Apple said.
Deepinder Goyal , CEO of Zomato, said, “This is a huge vote of confidence in India’s developer community and a tremendous opportunity to gain world-class design and development expertise. Apple’s support will help drive growth and accelerate progress among the country’s vast talent pool.”
It comes at a time when Cook is betting on India to become a multi-billion dollar market for the company, which is drowning into a global slowdown in smartphone sales and a slump in the growth of its flagship iPhone in key markets such as the US.
According to Counterpoint Research, Apple currently has around 3% volume share of the Indian smartphone market while by the value it is around 11%. In the premium segment, however, or handsets priced over Rs 30k, both Samsung and Apple are neck and neck, together accounting for more than 95% of the segment.
