Strong economic growth is projected to lead to continued expansion of Indian apple demand, but the high cost of domestic and imported apples compared with other Indian fruit is likely to limit consumption to higher income consumers. U.S. apples have accounted for the largest share of Indian imports, but face increasing competition from high-quality and low-cost Chinese apples. Although India has a high (50-percent) tariff on imported apples, internal marketing margins—or returns to traders over and above measured costs—account for a significantly larger share of consumer apple prices than do import prices, tariffs, or marketing costs. As a result, increased investment and competition in the domestic supply chain is likely to be particularly effective in boosting apple demand and imports. Domestic growers appear not to have been damaged by the entry of relatively high priced and high-quality imports, nor have they exploited the opportunity to boost earnings by improving quality to compete with imported apples.
