Apple's Tim Cook: 'India Has Bright Future, Here For A Thousand Years'

New Delhi: Apple CEO Tim Cook is on his first official visit to India. His visit comes at a crucial time when the US-based firm is focusing on new growth markets like India after posting its first-ever decline in iPhone sales. The Apple Chief is giving an exclusive interview to NDTV's Vikram Chandra.

Here are the highlights from the interview:

• Came to India to learn about the people, the culture & how businesses are done, what people are interested in and what their hopes & aspirations are, I am leaving with more knowledge in all of those.
• I instantly felt like I belonged here & was part of the community.
• Found cricket unbelievably exciting , you can feel so much energy there, so much enthusiasm, I loved it, I'm totally hooked on it. (Tim Cook had visited Kanpur to watch the IPL match yesterday.)
• Indian talent is unbelievable.
• Apple is rethinking India from a strategic point of view. I am here to learn.
• We have taken a step back and are now looking at India holistically.
• Looking at India from a number of other points of view: Apple retail, we see a bright future for Apple retail in India.
• We are viewing India much more strategically. We are viewing India through a global lens.
• We are putting enormous amounts of energy in India. Not here for a quarter, we are here for a thousand years.
• We are not about making the most, we are about making the best. We are about thinking long term and never lowering the bar.
• Strongly believe the demographics and the reforms going on in India means the country has an enormously bright future. Want to be part of that.
• Challenge in India is the duties & the taxes and the compounding of those.
• Our profitability is materially less in India, we realise that the prices are high, we want to do things to lower that.
• We want the user experience to have all the services and want to make sure that if there's something very unique in the country, we have thought that through in our product.
• At our core, we are about simplicity, we are about taking complex technology and bringing it you so that you can do things you haven't done before.
• India is a huge country and we need a multi channel approach.
• Was thinking of how I could help Apple get through loss of Steve Jobs.
• Steve loved to help people create, he would have loved what we did with Apple pencil.
• We stood up for our customers because we believed that they would want us to help secure their data.
• We don't view ourselves as powerful, we are about empowering people.