Battery replacement scheme was available India. But, due to absence of Apple store, users have to go to Apple authorized service vendors where services take days.
It took me 5 days to replace the battery in Dec 2018 because battery had to be specially ordered.(I live in major Indian city.)
Cheap Android phones from Xiaomi etc are flooding the Indian market. If Apple doesn't ramp up the quality of experience in areas other than Hardware and OS, it's gonna lose whatever market share it has in India.
I can’t imagine Apple headquarters wanting to ignore a 100 million rich people market, but obviously it’s not worth the trade off of having to become business partners with someone they don’t want to be partners with.
Well Samsung, One Plus and others are thriving in India, they dont have their own stores. So clearly its not the stores. The major factor is price (Apple tax + Indian Tax = One very expensive phone.
