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Modi
breached electoral rules when he photographed himself holding
his party's symbol of a lotus flower immediately after casting
his vote in the 2014 general election, one of the many selfies
he regularly takes with his Apple phone.
Cook meets the 65-year old prime minister in New Delhi on
Saturday, and will be hoping Modi's enthusiasm for phones can
help Apple as it tries to bolster sales in India.
While smartphone usage is surging as the middle class swells,
most Indians still can't afford Apple's iPhones and the company
has only about 2 percent market share in a country where 100
million phones were sold last year.
Apart from snapping the usual selfie, Modi is likely to tell
Cook that if Apple wants to sell more phones in India, it should
make them there, and help the prime minister realize his
ambition of turning the country into a manufacturing powerhouse.
Cook will also have to remember not to come between Modi and his
love of the limelight: on a trip to Silicon Valley in September
Modi appeared to shove Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg aside so
that the cameras could capture him fully.
Cook and Modi's meeting will cap an unusually long trip to India
that has seen the Apple boss pray at an elephant-god temple in
Mumbai, watch cricket and dine with Bollywood stars.
(Editing by Tommy Wilkes and Mark Potter)
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