In an hour-long meeting on Friday, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal reaffirmed their commitment to work closely in the Indian and African markets.
Cook, whose visit to India concluded on Friday, had earlier met Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran in Mumbai on Monday.
“Tim Cook and Sunil Bharti Mittal had an hour-long meeting this morning. While expressing their satisfaction on the ongoing long relationship that Apple and Airtel have had, reaffirmed their commitment to work more closely in the Indian and African market,” Airtel said in a tweet.
Smartphone companies like Apple loop in telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel as vendor partners in order to boost their smartphone sales. For telecom operators, the partnerships become a way to give a bundled offering such as broadband plans, etc, with the smartphone sales, experts said.
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On Monday, Cook inaugurated Apple’s first retail store in India in Mumbai and the second one in Delhi. On Wednesday, Cook also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, communications minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, and minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
“Thank you Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the warm welcome. We share your vision of the positive impact technology can make on India’s future — from education and developers to manufacturing and the environment, we’re committed to growing and investing across the country,” he tweeted after meeting the Prime Minister.