Ever since the demonetization of old currency notes last year, India’s digital payments business has been booming. Mobile wallets and payment solutions such as UPI have seen a surge in usage too. Samsung was quick enough to see the opportunity, and launch its Samsung Pay payments solution in India. Google also recently launched its Tez payments app in India. And while Apple missed the bus, new reports hint that the Cupertino giant may launch its Apple Pay solution in India soon.
In an interview with LiveMint at Apple’s Hyderabad development centre, Apple’s senior vice-president Eddy Cue hinted that the company is looking forward to launch Apple Pay in India. However, he did not give any specific launch date for the same. “Our head of Apple Pay, Jennifer Bailey, is here with me. And Apple Pay is something that we definitely want in India. The challenge with payment mechanisms is that there isn’t really a lot of global scale. You deal with individual markets at a time… but India is one of those markets where we hope to bring Apple Pay to,” Cue told the publication. 
Apple would look at partnering with established players such as Paytm to integrate the payment solution, rather than building a completely new payments solution from scratch, Cue said. “You have some great payment mechanisms today and we will leverage all of that in doing this. That’s one of the advantages that we have with Apple Pay—Apple Pay isn’t trying to come up with a brand-new payment vehicle, so the fact that people like Paytm are doing well here is great. The fact that credit cards are doing well here is great. We just need to integrate with the popular ones and make the service available,” Cue added. 
After China, India is the rapidly growing smartphone market, and Apple sees India as a long-term opportunity. Last year, Apple launched the app accelerator in Bengaluru to tap into India’s developer ecosystem. In India, Apple has over 4,000 people working on Apple Maps. The company is also tapping into services such as iCloud, Apple Music and Movies. 
The move towards getting a slice of India’s digital payment business comes right when Apple is ramping up its devices production in the country. Apple has already started assembling the iPhone SE models in India, in its Bengaluru plant. 
{BGR}