
Why Apple Wants to Get Into India So Bad -- Tech Roundup
Everyone knows Apple's (AAPL) - Get Report devices are huge in the world's most populous country -- China -- and pretty popular in the third-most populous -- the good ol' U.S. of A. But what about No. 2 India?
Turns out, Apple hasn't made much headway in that nation's rapidly growing consumer tech market thus far - and it wants to. Reuters reports the company has applied to the government in New Delhi for permission to open its own stores in India, where right now its products are only available via third-party vendors.
"Applied for permission to the government?" you may be asking. "Why do they need to ask the national government for permission to open retail stores? Sounds more like something they'd need to ask a zoning board."
Because in India, the law until recently included firm restrictions on foreign companies -- rules that, among other things, required single-brand non-Indian retailers to buy 30% of what they sold from domestic producers. Which is not really an option for Apple.
But the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has relaxed those rules, and Apple is now in talks to get an exception -- in which case, Apple Stores could soon be open in what industry watchers forecast will become the No. 2 smartphone market by 2017.
Good luck, Mr. Cook -- that's a whole lot of potential iPhone buyers.
Apple (a holding of Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS portfolio) closed Wednesday at $96.83, up 0.2%.
In more immediate news for Apple fans who are also fashionistas, word comes from TechCrunch that on Friday the limited-edition Hermes Apple Watch will become available online at the luxury brand's Web site and via Apple.com.
Since its launch in October, that upscale version of the smartwatch could only be found in a few stores in New York, LA, Toronto, Miami and San Francisco. Interestingly, with a price ranging from $1,100 to $1,500, the leather-strapped Hermes model is far more affordable than the less-exclusive Gold Apple Watch, which you could always buy online, if you had $10,000 to $17,000 to spare.
Stocks in general got whipsawed Wednesday as investors panicked over the contagion potential from yet another selloff in crude oil. Prices for West Texas Intermediate crude closed down 6.7% at $26.55 a barrel. Markets moved in response, and at one point the Dow was down as much as 566 points.
But the day ended with a rebound that pulled markets off their lows, and saw the tech-heavy Nasdaq close essentially flat. The S&P 500 ended down 1.2% at 1,859, the Dow was off 1.6% at 15,766 and the Nasdaq ended the day off 0.1% at 4,472.
So what became of your favorite tech stocks in the midst of all this volatility?
Netflix (NFLX) - Get Report , which at one point was off by 7% despite its impressive quarterly report Tuesday, finished down 2 cents at $107.74. Some analysts worry that it may be nearing the saturation point in the U.S. market, though foreign growth is looking strong.
Twitter (TWTR) - Get Report (another Action Alerts PLUS holding) oscillated as well, at one point spiking above $19 before closing at $17.39, up 4.2%, and recovering most of the ground it lost Tuesday in the wake of a widespread outage.
GoPro (GPRO) - Get Report shares slumped at one point by about 5% to $9.90, a slide some credited to an Edison Research analyst's note that consumer interest for its products is waning. That message seems to have been borne out by the holiday sales numbers. Regardless, GoPro bounced back like it had a drone lifting it, and ended the day at $11, up 4.1%.
Mobile payment processor Square (SQ) - Get Report closed up 0.3% at $9.50 after spending nearly the entire session in the red.
Even venerable Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Report climbed out of the hole, closing Wednesday at $50.79, up 0.5%.
Just goes to show, you never can tell when the mood on Wall Street is going to shift. It's also a reminder investors should consider the sage advice of the late Douglas Adams: Don't panic.
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.









