MUMBAI: Ashish Chowdhary, the chief customer operations officer of Nokia Networks has been appointed as Apple India head. He will take over as Apple India head from January next year.

Nokia, confirming his departure, said that Chowdhary will be leaving “at the end of 2018 after 15 successful years”.

Nokia also said, “Chowdhary will continue to lead customer operations and remain a member of the Nokia Group leadership team until the end of 2018. He will then leave Nokia to take a leadership position in another company.”

Chowdhary has 25 years of international experience in the enterprise and telecom side. With Nokia he was in charge of its sales and operations worldwide. Before that, he was the head of Asia Middle East and Africa and earlier, head of Global Services Business Unit.

On 1 November, Apple CEO Tim Cook had admitted that his business was sluggish in the country and would like to do something about it. Just after that, came the appointment of Chowdhary.

“I am a big believer in India. I am very bullish on the country and the people and our ability to do well there,” said Cook.

Apple India is currently under Michel Coulomb who took over from Sanjay Kaul in December last year.