India doesn’t let companies with foreign direct investments to sell their products online but it seems they don’t mind bending the rules for Apple Inc. “Apple’s iTunes store in India selling its songs, music and apps” experts said.
Apple is not marketing its products online but it retailing third party content. So, any local content can be sold on Apple iTunes store.
An industry official said iTunes is a “virtual storefront” or a platform on which third-party copyrighted content is being sold.
The person who did not want to reveal his identity, said the timing of the start of song and movie sales on iTunes had nothing to do with the vote on FDI in retail in Parliament last week.
Amazon.com Inc. is already selling products online in India, said Akash Gupt, executive director of consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Before Apple started selling movies and music online through iTunes it was already selling apps in India.
This iTunes service was launched in India and 56 other countries on 4 December.
Supporting Apple’s move of selling music and movies on iTunes , Nitish Asthana, commercial director, First Data India said, “Payments are also not processed in India and hence don’t come under the FDI policy”