When One iPhone Is Not Enough

Although most iPhone cases are made from everyday materials, some upscale ones

are made from the hides of exotic animals, from ostrich to American alligator. If you

were to shop for an iPhone case from online accessories retailer ullu, you’d spot one

that hints at an even more opulent lifestyle — a case that holds two iPhones.

It’s not that unusual for people to have two phones, one of their own for per-

sonal use and the other loaned to them by their employer for work use. Also, some

iPhone users like to carry two phones because they use two service providers — for

example, one that offers cheaper data and another that offers less expensive inter-

national calls. In the Middle East, however, where Apple has about 60 percent of

the smartphone market, affluent individuals tend to carry two iPhones out of a cul-

tural preference to keep their business and home lives separate. Men and women

prefer to keep their work and personal lives on separate SIM cards and don’t want

to bother swapping them out of one phone, according to ullu’s marketing manager,

Manish Hazarani.

“People do not want to mix work and family life. They take a very hard line on

this,” Hazarani said. “People have to travel outside the country all of the time and

incomes are high here, so there are people who will choose to have two phones.”

Should Apple ever develop a handset with two SIM card slots, Hazarani predicts

that people will carry one less phone and the niche market for the two-phone case

will dry up.

For now, ullu’s premium leather Dual Case and Dual II Case are selling at

about $200.

The founder of ullu, Divya Chaturvedi, has a love for Berluti shoes, and she

wanted to put the feel of luxurious leather in the hands of the iPhone user. Each

case is made to order by leatherworkers in India, and customers are told it takes

seven days before an order is ready to ship.

A case with Italian leather can be had for as little as $50, while a case made

from alligator hide retails for six times as much. Specializing in hand-drawn,

limited-edition designs, ullu concentrates on the Apple customer because of Apple

devices’ coveted status in the Middle East. In addition to iPhone cases, ullu makes

Apple Watch bands, shoulder bags for MacBooks, desk mats and mousepads, and

even leather slippers for the base of an iMac or Thunderbolt monitor.

The rise of ullu, Hazarani said, is thanks in part to its strategy of sending free

high-end cases to A-list celebrities in hopes that these superstars will be photo-

graphed carrying an ullu case.

“We lose capital sending free cases. There’s no guarantee,” Hazarani said.

Nonetheless, the strategy has been successful, with the ullu cases showing on

Instagram in the hands of superstars Rihanna, Jessica Alba, and Kim Kardashian.

Due at least in part to this savvy marketing strategy, sales doubled year over year

and were projected to increase even more.

The dual cases are particularly popular with some of the Middle East’s ruling

families, with orders coming from royalty in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and

Oman. The royals, according to Hazarani, are press shy, but they are seen in public

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