Currently, India has approximately 352 million active smartphone users, according to data from Newzoo. It also says that this number is the highest in the world after China.

In the second quarter alone, smartphone shipments in India stood at 37 million, and Apple had only a 1.18 per cent share in that market, or 4,36,600 users, according to data from Counterpoint Research. Even in the premium segment (handsets that cost ₹30,000 or more), Apple held a mere 20 per cent share.

So, if you thought Apple was going to make its streaming service, Apple TV+, accessible only to this minuscule segment, think again: Apple has a workaround to lure the entire smartphone community in India.

Sure, iPhone users can access Apple TV+ through the Apple TV app from the App Store. But Android (that has captured nearly 94.2 per cent of the smartphone market in India, according to StatCounter, Global stats data) and non-Apple users too can watch Apple TV+ on their mobile via the web at tv.apple.com.

Even if factors such as ease of use and app stickiness come into play, and only iPhone users end up using the platform, there are already over 10 million Apple smartphone users in India. Considering each of them subscribe to it, Apple would still be able to make nearly ₹100 crore every month.

Apple TV+, apart from iPhones, would be accessible on its other iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac computers, select Samsung smart TVs, and on streaming hubs such as Roku and Amazon's Fire TV.

By enabling consumers to stream content through Chrome and Windows browsers (Windows and Android operating systems have a combined market share of 91.53 per cent across platforms against iOS’s 2.18 per cent in India, according to StatCounter, Global stats data), Apple is now opening new doors to penetrate deeper into the Indian OTT market.

This is because consumers spend at least 6 per cent of their every day video-watching time on laptops and personal computers in India, according to a recent KPMG report titled 'Unravelling the digital video consumer'.

That apart, if Apple TV+ is made accessible across all models of streaming hubs available in the market, there are over 1.2 million active smart streaming devices in use in the country, according to Statista data. Even if 50 per cent of them subscribe to its platform, Apple would be able to earn at least ₹60 crore a year.

And that, would still be ₹5 crores more than the FY18 revenue of the highest-funded OTT start-up in India.

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