Apple Quietly Raises Prices of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in France

MacRumors · Oct 17, 2013

Apple has quietly increased the price of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in France, reports iGen.fr [Google Translate]. The 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB variants of the iPhone 5s are now priced at 709EUR, 811EUR, and 917EUR, up from 699EUR, 799EUR, and 899EUR respectively.

New (top) and old (bottom) iPhone 5s pricing in France

Meanwhile, the price of iPhone 5c in the country has gone up to 609EUR from 599EUR for the 16GB model, with the 32GB model now priced at 711EUR, up from 699EUR.

Apple released both phones in France and the first wave of countries on September 20, but it unclear why the company has raised prices in the country just weeks after launch. The company does not appear to be citing any increases in taxes being applied in the country, although France is scheduled to implement a minor increase in VAT on January 1. The change also does not appear to be a simple exchange rate adjustment, as other countries such as Germany that also use the euro have not seen any increase.

The quiet price increases are also not the only ones as of late for the company, as Apple also silently raised the prices of Mac mini models in multiple countries last month.

Update: ZDnet.fr suggests [Google Translate] that Apple may be passing along to consumers a tax levied on certain products to compensate for private copying on music and other content. Such levies are used in certain countries on various types of recordable media and storage devices to offset relaxed copyright laws permitting private copying of media, and in some cases as compensation offsetting illegal file sharing. There do not, however, appear to have been any recent changes to that tax rate in France, and thus it is unclear why Apple has raised its prices at this time.

Article Link: Apple Quietly Raises Prices of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in France

GoCubsGo · Oct 17, 2013

Douche move. With a seemingly high profit margin already, there seems to be little reason for the increase. Even if VAT was raised, which I cannot tell that it has been, it seems like Apple could have just ate the increase. I call this bad press for Apple. As for the increase on the 5c, that was incredibly dumb as it appears there may not be enough value in the 5c as is making the 5S a clear choice in the matter. If it is true that they're cutting production, then increasing the price isn't going to help matters.

oström · Oct 17, 2013

709 euro when the android top models costs from 455 euro (LG G2 32GB), 500 euro (Galaxy s4), 510 euro (HTC one). Hmmm... I know iPhone is in aluminum but wtf...

wschutz · Oct 17, 2013

Apple, no press release for such an amazing price of an innovative and never seen before beautiful technology?

I guess Apple is getting ready for its currently legal (but non-ethical) tax tactics in the EU by charging a little bit more in France, and I guess soon everywhere

KALLT · Oct 17, 2013

oström said:
709 euro when the android top models costs from 455 euro (LG G2 32GB), 500 euro (Galaxy s4), 510 euro (HTC one). Hmmm... I know iPhone is in aluminum but wtf...

It's a bit silly to compare the competition with Apple in terms of pricing. Apple devices have always been on the expensive side, regardless of materials. That should be no surprise.

pancakedrawer · Oct 17, 2013

Strange move given that it was only just released. With the quality Android devices on the market today, it's becoming difficult to justify the iPhone prices, though they do hold their value well...

32KFJ · Oct 17, 2013

i'm curious if the prices for the new ipads will remain the same here in austria (499 / 16gb wifi / retina) after the introduction on tuesday.

jonasdamn · Oct 17, 2013

In Lithuania iPhone 5 price from Apple authorised resellers have increased by about 30 euros, on 25th will arrive iPhone 5S

Imory · Oct 17, 2013

This hasn't only affected France. They've raised the prices for the 5S with approximately 30 € across all models in Sweden.

Agent OrangeZ · Oct 17, 2013

GoCubsGo said:
Douche move. With a seemingly high profit margin already, there seems to be little reason for the increase. Even if VAT was raised, which I cannot tell that it has been, it seems like Apple could have just ate the increase. I call this bad press for Apple. As for the increase on the 5c, that was incredibly dumb as it appears there may not be enough value in the 5c as is making the 5S a clear choice in the matter. If it is true that they're cutting production, then increasing the price isn't going to help matters.

Apple didn't build up $100 billion in cash by giving away nickels and dimes to consumers in the form of taxes, levies or currency exchange rates.

samcraig · Oct 17, 2013

1080p said:
Apple didn't build up $100 billion in cash by giving away nickels and dimes to consumers in the form of taxes, levies or currency exchange rates.

True. But since they didn't have 100B THEN, they might not have been able to afford that luxury. Are you going to argue that they can't do it now?

After that - you can let me know if you're a consumer or a stockholder (or both).

B4U · Oct 17, 2013

I read 917 Euro for the 64GB model.

wschutz · Oct 17, 2013

Imory said:
This hasn't only affected France. They've raised the prices for the 5S with approximately 30 € across all models in Sweden.

Sweden is the country were companies can raise the prices as much as they want, and still swedes will just pay happily (although they might be angry in the deep of their inside) because in Sweden... no one complains! Swedish have money, and companies just enjoy the fact of money and lack of critique in the form of no purchase

PS: A non-Swedish working in Sweden and astonished at this behavior (still... after five years here... I don't get it... and that's why I barely buy anything besides food in Sweden, because it is more expensive than it should and because customer service is just a dream in most cases)

isepic · Oct 17, 2013

samcraig said:
True. But since they didn't have 100B THEN, they might not have been able to afford that luxury. Are you going to argue that they can't do it now?

After that - you can let me know if you're a consumer or a stockholder (or both).

<s>
OMG look they raised the prices in the USA too! If I fly to New York, I'll pay about 10% more for it then if I were to buy it in Delaware!!! OMG OMG OMG
</s>

Since it's the LAW there to advertise the price WITH all taxes included, folks should understand that before mouthing off complaints on how bad Apple is. You are paying the same amount as everyone else, its just for some countries, the tax is included in the amount you see advertised, and in some places it is not. Using my example above, if the USA had the same laws, you'd see the taxes and you'd see any tax changes as they occur per state too. Also, stockholders don't see a dime of the taxes, so that's probably a moot point. It could be that Apple miscalculated this tax to begin with, we'll know soon enough if this blows up in their face.

On the other hand, if I were having to pay a tax on content that is being copied, when I'm not in fact doing the copying, I'd be obliged then to start copying instead of purchasing the content. What are they thinking?

Edit: So looking at the google cache of http://store.apple.com/fr/buy-iphone/iphone5s TVA is shown as the same (115, 131 and 148) as what is on the live site now. So, if this is a tax we should see it down there at the bottom right? So maybe something else is going on.

JLL · Oct 17, 2013

Imory said:
This hasn't only affected France. They've raised the prices for the 5S with approximately 30 € across all models in Sweden.

Where do you see that?

Or are you comparing the announced 5s prices with the previous 5 prices?

5s has been a little more expensive than 5 in Europe since day 1.

the8thark · Oct 17, 2013

samcraig said:
True. But since they didn't have 100B THEN, they might not have been able to afford that luxury. Are you going to argue that they can't do it now?

If you sell out of something at full price why would you ever discount it. If people want to pay full price for it, you let the people do that.

Imory · Oct 17, 2013

wschutz said:
Sweden is the country were companies can raise the prices as much as they want, and still swedes will just pay happily (although they might be angry in the deep of their inside) because in Sweden... no one complains! Swedish have money, and companies just enjoy the fact of money and lack of critique in the form of no purchase

PS: A non-Swedish working in Sweden and astonished at this behavior (still... after five years here... I don't get it... and that's why I barely buy anything besides food in Sweden, because it is more expensive than it should and because customer service is just a dream in most cases)

Last time I checked, Sweden still had a government that was functioning in the best interests of Swedes and not just Swedish corporations. There's no truth to what you're saying regarding customer service would only be a "dream" here. Perhaps that applies to you, but I know my rights as a customer and I've luckily never encountered any problems so far regarding warranty issues etc.

Taxes here are high, but that is also one of the reasons why Sweden (Scandinavia in general) is considered to have one of the highest standard of living. But more importantly there's a wide population which is within the middle/upper middle class.

This is all really irrelevant though and has nothing to do with the news article.

----------

JLL said:
Where do you see that?

Or are you comparing the announced 5s prices with the previous 5 prices?

5s has been a little more expensive than 5 in Europe since day 1.

Here you go.

Apple Press Info (Swedish)

Yes, I'm comparing the price of the 5S with the previous 5.

I didn't know that, why is that? I take it that they've increased the price in Denmark as well?

samcraig · Oct 17, 2013

isepic said:
<s>
OMG look they raised the prices in the USA too! If I fly to New York, I'll pay about 10% more for it then if I were to buy it in Delaware!!! OMG OMG OMG
</s>

Since it's the LAW there to advertise the price WITH all taxes included, folks should understand that before mouthing off complaints on how bad Apple is. You are paying the same amount as everyone else, its just for some countries, the tax is included in the amount you see advertised, and in some places it is not. Using my example above, if the USA had the same laws, you'd see the taxes and you'd see any tax changes as they occur per state too. Also, stockholders don't see a dime of the taxes, so that's probably a moot point. It could be that Apple miscalculated this tax to begin with, we'll know soon enough if this blows up in their face.

On the other hand, if I were having to pay a tax on content that is being copied, when I'm not in fact doing the copying, I'd be obliged then to start copying instead of purchasing the content. What are they thinking?

Edit: So looking at the google cache of http://store.apple.com/fr/buy-iphone/iphone5s TVA is shown as the same (115, 131 and 148) as what is on the live site now. So, if this is a tax we should see it down there at the bottom right? So maybe something else is going on.

I never said Apple was bad for doing it

the8thark said:
If you sell out of something at full price why would you ever discount it. If people want to pay full price for it, you let the people do that.

Absorbing a "new" cost involved isn't discounting. Discounting it would be lowering the price.

And I am not saying Apple should or should not do it.

Gemütlichkeit · Oct 17, 2013

now I see why my euro friends vacation here and buy their apple products lol.

omerbaker · Oct 17, 2013

Just another example that companies don't pay taxes, their customers pay taxes. The more a government taxes a business, the more that business has to charge for their product or service. The truly immoral aspect here is the coercive tax, not Apple passing it along to customers who are freely paying it.

IJ Reilly · Oct 17, 2013

Gemütlichkeit said:
now I see why my euro friends vacation here and buy their apple products lol.

A weak dollar makes everything here a bargain for travelers from the eurozone.

Technarchy · Oct 17, 2013

omerbaker said:
Just another example that companies don't pay taxes, their customers pay taxes. The more a government taxes a business, the more that business has to charge for their product or service. The truly immoral aspect here is the coercive tax, not Apple passing it along to customers who are freely paying it.

Pretty much. Governments can interfere but no company is just going to eat losses. They will pass the cost on to the consumer.

firewood · Oct 17, 2013

GoCubsGo said:
Douche move. With a seemingly high profit margin already, there seems to be little reason for the increase. Even if VAT was raised, which I cannot tell that it has been, it seems like Apple could have just ate the increase.

The reason to increase the price was that was supported by supply and demand. Enough customers in France must be willing to pay for a 5s to buy out the current rate of supply, and Apple can't manufacture them much faster.

If Apple ate the increase, then the lower profits would have hurt all of Apple's shareholders in France (as well as the rest of the world). That's the trade-off, and some prefer to play both sides by buying both high-priced Apple products and owning a bit of AAPL stock (which is a fair portion of even index funds).

Agent OrangeZ · Oct 17, 2013

samcraig said:
True. But since they didn't have 100B THEN, they might not have been able to afford that luxury. Are you going to argue that they can't do it now?

After that - you can let me know if you're a consumer or a stockholder (or both).

Your argument doesn't really hold water. They built a massive cash pile by managing their money well. So... now that they have a lot of money, you think they should mismanage it by not adjusting to conditions that affect the amount of money they make? They should take a hit for the consumer? Last time I checked, most public companies are in business to make as much money as they can.

Oh I am just a consumer with the ability to look at things from a business perspective.

samcraig · Oct 17, 2013

1080p said:
Your argument doesn't really hold water. They built a massive cash pile by managing their money well. So... now that they have a lot of money, you think they should mismanage it by not adjusting to conditions that affect the amount of money they make? They should take a hit for the consumer? Last time I checked, most public companies are in business to make as much money as they can.

Oh I am just a consumer with the ability to look at things from a business perspective.

I never said that I think they should. Now did I?

Apple Quietly Raises Prices of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in France

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