Apple at 50: India was once a journey. Now it’s a growth engine

In the mid-1970s, long before he co-founded Apple, a young Steve Jobs travelled to India in search of spiritual clarity. He returned leaner, disillusioned in parts, but also with a sharpened sense of intuition. Something he would later say shaped how he thought about simplicity and design.

Nearly five decades later, as Apple turns 50 on April 1, the company is back in India — not searching, but scaling.

For much of its history, India remained a difficult market for Apple to crack. Price sensitivity and a fragmented retail ecosystem meant the company’s tightly controlled, premium playbook did not quite fit. The iPhone was aspirational, but often out of reach, and Apple’s presence felt limited compared to its dominance in markets like the US and China.