Apple Adjusts International App Store Prices

[cosmichobo]

Aussie prices

Here in Oz, there's forever been a bitchfest about the pricing of Apple products. It's been nothing to see 15-20% mark up compared to US prices. In fact, at the moment the Mac Pro does have a 20% mark up - base model in USA is $2500, in Australia its $2999.

But thankfully most other things are now much more on par with the US, dollar for dollar. And it's not just because the AU$ is worth US$1.07 right now... clearly Apple US/Australasia has finally stopped marking up the prices, and today's changes further support this.

I expect the new Mac Pro, whenever it's released, will fix the 20% disparity mentioned above.

It is very interesting to hear people from other countries also experiencing this "Apple tax"... Have to admit that til now I've never really considered the plight of other areas of the world. :}

 

[jowie]

for uk and norway :hahaha, serves you right for not accepting the euro. I live in belgium, and still 0.99$ is 0.79€. You are part of the european union, now embrace it's currency.

For switzerland and mexico, though luck, but i pressume prices will fluctuate sooner or later

Yeah good luck bailing out Greece! *waves*

 

[WickedStealthy]

Haven't read the complete discussion. But one thing. European prices are inflated. Years back when the dollar was much stronger then the euro prices got adapted accordingly. Now it is the way around and suddenly 1 euro = 1 dollar ???
We just pay what companies (which flee to low cost countries) think they can charge to keep profit as high as possible.

A time ago some consumer organisation made a nice calculation for cars and compared basic prices in different countries and added the local VAT, duty taxes etc ... to compare with local prices. Well selling prices where inflated far beyond the calculated prices ...

Imported 3y ago some motorcycle stuff directly from Japan. Well guess what. After paying import taxes, VAT and high shipping cost (few items) prices where still 40% less then for the same imported product here. I even got threatened by some distributors when I revealed this on a public forum and helped some people getting there stuff elsewhere ...

 

[solaris]

Not cool. The USD is at 5.5kr right now, so even 6kr was high. 7 is just outrageous!

Exactly!
If anything the prices should have been adjusted down to 5.49kr, not up to 7kr. I guess their calculator is broken.

for uk and norway :hahaha, serves you right for not accepting the euro. I live in belgium, and still 0.99$ is 0.79€. You are part of the european union, now embrace it's currency.

Wrong!
Norway is not part of the European Union. But still with a record low exchange rate (1USD = 5.50NOK) we get screwed like this.

 

[iStudentUK]

Exactly!
If anything the prices should have been adjusted down to 5.49kr, not up to 7kr. I guess their calculator is broken.

You guys pay 25% VAT in Norway right?

$0.99 is before tax. So $1 = 5.49kr, add VAT = 6.9kr

 

[Lone Deranger]

Yeah good luck bailing out Greece! *waves*

And soon Portugal, Spain and Italy.... What is it with those Mediterranean economies?

 

[Igantius]

Tap! Magazine has a chart (don't think this has been linked to, but if has already, apologies) showing the increase in UK pricing for each price tier, both as a percentage and the new price.

 

[Ludaru]

for uk and norway :hahaha, serves you right for not accepting the euro. I live in belgium, and still 0.99$ is 0.79€. You are part of the european union, now embrace it's currency.

For switzerland and mexico, though luck, but i pressume prices will fluctuate sooner or later

Norway is not a member of the European Union.

 

[CoreForce]

And soon Portugal, Spain and Italy.... What is it with those Mediterranean economies?

Nothing special, only that the northern states decided to make the payments public they do to them for years now.

It's nice to live in Switzerland, by the way

 

[solaris]

You guys pay 25% VAT in Norway right?

$0.99 is before tax. So $1 = 5.49kr, add VAT = 6.9kr

Not on low value imported items, afaik.
Any item worth less than NOK 200 are VAT free when imported into Norway. There may be a 25% VAT added for items valued more than these NOK 200 though. Might be different for software, so that may explain it.

Thanks!

 

[needlz]

Is anyone else having problems with the Mac App Store (Switzerland)?

I'm always getting this two error/info messages (infinite loop, see attachments).

 

[aegisdesign]

For UK commenters the old prices (eg 59p) were set on the old VAT rate, have some already forgotten it went up not so long ago?

The fact that iTunes Europe is based in Luxembourg is irrelevant I'm afraid. The general rule for VAT on consumer purchases of goods and services is that they are taxed in the country in which they are bought. The UK app store prices include UK VAT.

So, given that 61.5p with VAT is approx. 74p, 69p isn't bad at all.

No, that's not true.

You pay VAT at the rate in which the company selling the goods is based. So, if I in the UK buy something from a company based in Germany, I pay 19% VAT unless I myself am VAT registered and I give the German company my number. In which case they don't charge me VAT - it's zero-rated.

If I sell something in the UK (which I do) to someone in Germany, they pay 20% VAT unless again they tell me their VAT number.

iTunes, based in Luxembourg charges IIRC 15% VAT although Luxemboug has other rates depending on the service.

 

[eidimon]

Originally Posted by Lone Deranger View Post
And soon Portugal, Spain and Italy.... What is it with those Mediterranean economies?

Nothing special, only that the northern states decided to make the payments public they do to them for years now.

It's nice to live in Switzerland, by the way

Well, it is actually a far more complex matter, totally off-topic, but i will try to summarize my thoughts with the fewer words possible :

If Mediterranean countries (by the way, Ireland or Belgium aren't that Mediterranean) had their own currency, they could devalue it, and imported products would be more expensive, so people would buy local products more.

Then, less money would flow to the northern countries, and they would not have so many profits by selling to the people from the weaker economies.

Simultaneously, products from southern countries would be cheaper, more people from northern countries would buy them and money would go to the south this way.

As more southern products would be sold, and profits would be greater, southern states' businesses would expand, hiring more people, pushing growth, lowering unemployment.
This would lead to the southern states earning more money through income tax, or VAT, because of the increased consumption as more people now have money to spend, thus lower deficit/debt.

The opposite of what happens now, that many businesses have shut down, people are unemployed, other are exploited by their bosses but do not dare stand up for their rights being afraid they'll be fired and not able to find a new job, etc, and recession is all over.

So, the result would be much better for those countries (Ireland included) than now that they are given the so called "bailouts"
(So far, no German or any other taxpayer has lost a single euro - loans have huge interest rates and the loaning countries make a bigger or less profit out of the "bailed-out" countries problem)

If there's a default, then there is a big chance northern countries' taxpayers will lose money, but mainly because politicians will do once again what they do best : instead of letting banks/investors suffer the losses, pass them on to the taxpayers.
(While when they have great profits the only taxpayers that get something are the bank executives that earn huge bonuses)

Living in Switzerland is not that bad - although i wouldn't mind a bit more sun.
In fact, Zurich is one of the places i consider living in for the years to come...

 

[Westyfield2]

UK prices up? **** off Apple.

 

[gkpm]

No, that's not true.

You pay VAT at the rate in which the company selling the goods is based. So, if I in the UK buy something from a company based in Germany, I pay 19% VAT unless I myself am VAT registered and I give the German company my number. In which case they don't charge me VAT - it's zero-rated.

If I sell something in the UK (which I do) to someone in Germany, they pay 20% VAT unless again they tell me their VAT number.

iTunes, based in Luxembourg charges IIRC 15% VAT although Luxemboug has other rates depending on the service.

That's not the whole story, there is a threshold of sales at which point your company must register in the consumer's country and tax further sales at their rate. The threshold for the UK is £70,000 per year.

I'm sure iTunes easily surpasses this so they must register in the UK as well and charge VAT at 20%.

See http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/start/register/when-to-register.htm#3

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxati...ew_of_Internet_Taxation_in_the_European_Union

 

[futuretap]

Effect on consumers and developers sometimes differs

Interestingly, the effect on consumers and developers sometimes differs because Apple now always sends the proceeds to the developers in the customer's currency. Here's a spreadsheet that shows the changes for both consumers and developers: http://d.pr/MkhA

 

[drake]

I look forward to them reducing the prices in the Canadian store given the USD and CDN dollars have been at least 1:1 for more than a year.

Current iTunes rental
$3.99 movie rental in the US; same movie in Canada $4.99
$4.99 HD movie rental in the US; same movie is Canada is $5.99

32GB iPad in the US $499; same iPad in Canada $519

Didn't happen. We're gettin' screwed.

 

[kirreip]

Is anyone else having problems with the Mac App Store (Switzerland)?

I'm always getting this two error/info messages (infinite loop, see attachments).

Same problem here. Seems to be the price we pay for lower prices

 

[haydn!]

I think it's pretty obvious then, that Apple's previous UK pricing on iTunes/App Store was not tied to the exchange rate, or certainly not the same conversion used for hardware. App prices were clearly much cheaper in the UK than they were in the States, but it is the opposite for hardware.

If Apple are expected to align their entire product line using the same conversion, then it's possible we may see some drops in hardware prices. That said, the international distribution costs for hardware are obviously substantially more than they are for digital content so a small up charge is to be expected.

 

[fosking]

Below is a chart of the GBP against the USD over the last year.
At the start of August we were at 1.6000 and today we are at 1.6100. A 1 Cent difference!
Take a note of yesterdays trading in which the USD started the day 1 Cent STRONGER than the GBP at 1.5900.

In the mean time, the first six months were in favor of the USD and the second six months the GBP. Now we are back where we started from a whole year ago.

Why is the UK having price increases?

GBP/USD

 

[Truffy]

FCPX is still the equivalent of $365 on the Swiss app store. Better, but still not good enough.

 

[cambookpro]

We should all protest and not buy any apps!

But seriously, if you think about it like this:

59p -> 69p: Only 10p difference
£5.99 -> £6.99: £1 difference, that's a song you could buy there

For things like expensive MAS apps:

£59.99 -> £69.99: A big difference, £10


And for the really expensive 'I am Rich'-esque apps:

£599.99 -> £699.99: £100 difference!!

 

[paddy]

What about the Eurozone? More important than all the countries listed on page one combined?

 

[kalsta]

Here in Oz, there's forever been a bitchfest about the pricing of Apple products. It's been nothing to see 15-20% mark up compared to US prices. In fact, at the moment the Mac Pro does have a 20% mark up - base model in USA is $2500, in Australia its $2999.

If you're aware of the debate, then you're probably also aware that US prices don't include tax whereas Australian prices include the 10% GST. So the difference has never been what people claim it to be.

Still, I'm not complaining about the change! 99 cent apps including GST… I never thought I'd live to see the day!

 

[ultimato]

Those ****ers have raised the price in the iTunes store as well. DRM-free tracks cost $1.29 in the iTunes Store with a U.S. account, right? Well, it's gone from NOK 10.00 to 12.00 now. That is NOK 9.30 per dollar. Even if you make a correction for the 25 % tax, it's still NOK 7.44 per dollar - which is 34 % higher than the mid-rate USD/NOK (currently at 5.53).

Out-****ing-standing...

*sukk…

That's because Norway started taxing digital purchases July 1st 2011 - This month. So of course music as well as apps would be more expensive. However Apple actually reduced the price from 6NOK to 5,60NOK and then added the 25% VAT (moms). Which is… wait for it… drumroll… 7 NOK!

And for your earlier post: Yes you are wrong. Tax is included in all prices in norwegian stores. digital or otherwise. That is by law. In the US it is not, so even the hardware prices are not THAT bad. However seeing that they effectively reduced prices on the App Store by around 7% we could see that for hardware as well
ie. that would change the price on the entry level Macbook Air from 8490 NOK to 7895 NOK.