Apple iPhones purchased abroad will now get warranty support in India


Apple iPhone 8 Plus_fonearena-08

Apple products are well known for the warranty support which comes along with the purchase of the product be it an iPhone, Mac, iPad or iPad. Apple will now honour the warranty for unlocked iPhones even if they have been purchased outside India. This means if you bought your iPhone in the US or any international location and something went wrong, you can approach a authorized service center and get it serviced like it was purchased in India. FoneArena can confirm that warranty for iPhones purchased abroad will be honoured in India. This is big win for consumers as service centers usually turn away consumers for out of country purchases.

I have always enjoyed international warranty on my Mac computers, iPods, Routers and iPads and even end up buying Apple Care extended warranty support on them.  But international warranty support for the iPhone has always been a grey area mainly due to the Apple’s terms and conditions.

I have heard from many users who have successfully had their devices purchased from countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, UAE serviced here. Some were not lucky and had to pay for the service from their pocket. A couple of retailers I spoke to echoed the sentiment and that they have been lucky getting some customer devices fixed with warranty and in some cases not approved.  I personally experienced an issue back in 2011 when my iPhone won’t get a signal in India due to a mysterious issue.
I had purchased my iPhone 4S at that time in UK and the phone could not make a phone call in India due to some issue in the IMEI. Apple solved my issue remotely in a matter of days and the iPhone 4S hadn’t even launched in India back then.

Apple’s legal agreement says

IMPORTANT RESTRICTION FOR iPHONE, iPAD AND APPLE TV SERVICE.

Apple may restrict warranty service for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV to the country where Apple or its Authorized Distributors originally sold the device.

The key word  here is “may”. Apple may restrict service to country of purchase and it is up to them to decide if you device or country is eligible to provide you warranty service. The key understanding behind this has been that it could be impossible for Apple to provide support for products in countries where the products have not been launched. But with India becoming a very important market in recent times, this change is expected. The iPhone X goes on sale in India on November 3rd , the same day consumers in the US get their hands on it. So looks like the company has the required infrastructure to provide warranty support in India.  TechPP has an interesting point that this move could drive the competition to provide international warranty too. We have reached out to Apple for a official confirmation.

Time to trouble that friend, colleague or cousin to bring an iPhone 8 or iPhone X and save some money ?


Author: Varun Krish

Varun Krish is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast and has been blogging about mobile phones since 2005. His current phones include the Apple iPhone 13 Pro and Google Pixel 6. You can follow him on Twitter @varunkrish and on Google+ You can also mail Varun Krish