Take the most talked-about phone in recent history and launch it in one of the fastest growing cell-phone markets in the world, and you’d expect fireworks. But in India, where carriers Vodafone and Bharti Airtel have been offering Apple’s iPhone since last August, unsold phones are stacking up at shops around the country. Apple won’t break down sales figures by country, but a senior Airtel executive confirms analyst estimates that total official iPhone sales here have yet to touch 20,000 handsets. Vodafone, which has a lower-key advertising campaign, has sold even fewer, the analysts estimate. Even including sales on the black market, where the phone sells for half the $700 sticker price, the total only increases by an additional 15,000, according to an Indian customs official. That’s puny, especially since Indian cell-phone providers have added nearly 20 million new customers since the iPhone’s launch last year.
p
What has gone wrong for Apple in India? Nearly two years after the phone officially went on sale in the U.S., Apple’s failure to gain a foothold in India’s lucrative [market] may hold lessons for its upcoming iPhone push into China. As the global recession hurts growth in the U.S. and other mature markets, Apple could use some success in these still-growing Asian giants. Sales are already slowing worldwide: The company says it has sold 30 million iPhone and iPod Touch units since their launch. On Mar. 5, JPMorgan Chase analyst Mark Moskowitz cut his estimates for iPhone sales to 3.41 million for the January-March financial quarter, down from almost 3.85 million. [Our] primary research contacts suggest that Mac and iPhone volumes had been trending below our prior expectations, Moskowitz wrote in a note to clients.
p
In India, Apple has run up against some big obstacles. For instance, it has to fight against Nokia, a longtime…