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According to industry research firm Counterpoint, Apple’s iPhone sales are set to dip by about a quarter in India’s holiday season fourth quarter, putting them on target for the first full-year fall in four years.

The Cupertino, California company’s effort to step forward with India’s 1.3 billion consumers swung more sharply into spotlight this week after Apple blamed a poor set of sales forecasts on a handful of big rising markets.

Chief Executive Tim Cook told that after publishing third quarter results, sales were unexciting in India in the fourth quarter, in which includes a month-long festive season ending this week in Diwali and this time is a bumper period for electronics sales.

Neil Shah, research director at HongKong-based Counterpoint Research, told on Saturday that its channel verifies the numbers for the quarter in the range of 700,000 to 800,000 units, down from around a million a year ago.

He said, Apple was ready to sell about 2 million phones in the year, 2018 which was a fall of about a million from last year, as Indians hesitate to pay for high prices for the devices, driven by trade tariffs and a weak rupee.

Shah said, “Sales are set to drop for the first time in four years. If you look at Q3 – it was 900k last year and this (year) is almost 450k. Iphones have gone costlier and the features and specs aren’t that compelling. The install base of android has grown vastly; the new customer base (for Apple) is not coming.”

Cook on Thursday described the company’s problems in India “speed bumps along a very long journey” and as per most analysts, the status of Apple’s brand should permit it to assert back lost ground as Indians’ spending capacity continues to grow.

Mr Neil hah also said that, when more than half the phones sold in 2018 were older iPhone models, high selling prices proposed for Apple’s Indian revenue should still be dreary or slightly higher than the previous year.