New Delhi [India], September 3: When Arbaz Husain founded HelloRE, he was not simply entering the smartphone repair business. He was responding to a structural failure that India’s rapidly expanding Apple user base had been quietly absorbing for years.

India is now Apple’s fourth-largest market globally. According to IDC, Apple shipped a record 12 million iPhones in 2024 – a 35% year-on-year increase – with Counterpoint Research placing market share at a record 9% by 2025. Behind those numbers is a quieter reality: millions of Apple devices in active use, and an unregulated repair ecosystem ill-equipped to service them correctly.

A Fractured Supply Chain

The problem begins before a device ever reaches a repair technician. India’s spare parts market for Apple devices is largely unorganised – fragmented across hundreds of intermediary traders with no standardisation, no traceability, and no quality accountability.

Compounding this is a less visible but significant issue: components that fail quality control checks in global manufacturing supply chains are routinely sold into markets where regulatory oversight is limited. India, with its price-sensitive consumer base and high demand for affordable repairs, has become a primary destination for these rejected parts. They carry no warranty, no certification, and no guarantee of compatibility – yet they are indistinguishable to the untrained eye from components that passed inspection.

The consumer, facing a cracked screen or a failing battery, has no practical way to know which category of part is being installed.

“Apple has built an ecosystem where every component communicates with the others,” said Arbaz Husain. “When a repair disrupts that communication – through incompatible parts, undertrained technicians, or a lack of diagnostic rigour – the device may continue to operate, but not necessarily as originally intended.”

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

The risks are well-documented. Apple’s own support documentation warns that repairs by untrained individuals using non-genuine parts may affect device safety and display functionality. Poorly executed repairs cause reduced battery life, loss of display calibration, sensor malfunctions, and overheating – consequences that compound over time and are rarely traced back to their origin.

The supply side adds legal and financial exposure. The US Trade Representative’s 2023 Notorious Markets List identified SP Road in Bengaluru as a hotspot for counterfeit electronic goods. A Karnataka consumer court established legal precedent when a claim related to a counterfeit Apple product was denied on grounds of inauthenticity – underscoring the financial risk consumers assume when engaging unverified repair services.

Procuring at the Source

HelloRE was built around a different model. Rather than sourcing parts through the fragmented trader network, the company procures components directly – bypassing the intermediary layers where QC-rejected goods typically enter circulation. Every part is traceable to its source, and every repair is backed by a warranty.

The platform services iPhones, MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watches, and AirPods through trained technicians using diagnostic processes built around Apple’s integrated architecture – at the customer’s doorstep across Bengaluru. Where the wider market competes on speed and price, HelloRE competes on outcome and accountability.

Filling a Gap Apple Has Not Yet Closed

Apple’s Self-Service Repair programme is available in 34 countries. India is not among them. In the absence of that framework, and with authorised service centres limited in reach and accessibility, the burden of maintaining device integrity falls on the choices consumers make and the providers they trust.

For Arbaz Husain, building HelloRE around source procurement and verified parts was not a differentiator – it was the baseline. “If you’re going to service a device someone depends on every day, the part going into it needs to be the right part. That’s not a premium offering. That’s just what repair should mean.”

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