Apple CEO Tim Cook, commenced his maiden visit to India today from the Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai. This is his first visit after becoming the Apple CEO succeeding the legendary Steve Jobs. Cook is scheduled to visit Bangalore, Hyderabad and the Delhi this week. The meetings with the prime minister Narendra Modi, Chief ministers of the visiting states as well as Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry, Bharati Airtel head Sunil Mittal is also on cards.

Tim Cook’s visit to India is highly important for Apple as it has started taking India seriously, only very recently. Apple is expected to announce the new development center at Hyderabad during his meeting with Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao and his IT minister K. T. Rama Rao. K. T. Rama Rao has already hinted the big news through Twitter.

Will share a Big news with you all day after tomorrow. Suspense till then

— KTR (@KTRTRS) May 17, 2016

On his arrivals, Tim Cook has already announced an acceleration center at India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore and it’s expected to open in early 2017.

Apple CEO said in the statement, “"India is home to one of the most vibrant and entrepreneurial iOS development communities in the world . With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we're giving developers access to tools which will help them create innovative apps for customers around the world.”

“The company's in-house experts would lead briefings and provide one-on-one app reviews for developers, while the accelerator would also provide support and guidance on Apple's programming language Swift. "Swift enables developers to write safer, more reliable code, save time and create richer app experiences, ” said Apple.

Interestingly, he’s returning from China where Apple has invested $1 billion in the taxi company Didi Chuxiang. Didi Chuxiang have alos invested in Ola, India’s cab provider company and a biggest rivals to Uber in India.

He is expected to meet Sunil Mittal, Bharati Airtel head and will discuss the network issues in India. Tim Cook have stated concerns over slowly rolling out 4G networks in the country and had alleged that it slows down the country’s progress in mobile phone market which is 7 years behind than China.

He is also scheduled to meet prime minister Narendra Modi as prime minister was welcomed by the Apple CEO on his trip to United States and the PM had invited him to India.

With plans to open accelerator program for startups in India, Foxxconn, Chinese manufacturer giant, who also builds the iPhone, is also expected to establish their manufacturing plants in Maharashtra under PM Modi’s Make in India initiative.

Apple CEO Tim Cook have always stated India’s importance in smartphone market and this visit could yield smart results.

By Prajakt K.