Painful. even with the gift card, the stuff is still more expensive than it was in July before Apple hiked their prices between 25 and 30% depending on item... Moreover, as someone else mentioned, the cards are only for people who buy the least popular products...
What's worse is the Yen has recovered to where it was in July when Apple hiked prices, but of course the prices have not gone back to pre hike levels.
This sort of malarkey is why sales of iPhones have declined 69% in Japan since the heady iPhone 12 days when Apple had a nearly 60% (>55% according to a Nikkei Financial Times report) hold on the smartphone market.
Of my 100+ customers here in Tokyo, whom I polled, not a single one has purchased an iPhone 14 or 14 pro series phone...
Most are sticking with their 11 pros or 12 pros. There are a few (about 30%) who have an iPhone 13.
The Apple Watch Ultra, by contrast is very popular, with many replacing series 4 and 5 devices.
For those that are Japanese, please educate us Americans, I genuinely want to learn. Isn't there luck tied to your birth-year associated animal? And are the Apple products tied to the free AirTag promotion popular there?
If they are not popular products, it almost feels manipulative on Apple's part to give away what they are (year of the rabbit AirTags), but you have to buy certain products to get it. Can you buy the rabbit AirTags separately?
Let me know if I don't know what I'm talking about....
Birth Year Animals (Animal signs) are used as simple horoscopes, like birth months (star signs) in the west.
There is also some sort of camaraderie with others of the same sign, be it the same year or 12 years earlier/later, called Isshu, or one revolution.
Also, as mentioned above, the items tied to the promotion are the ones still on the shelves in great numbers. Not popular at all... I rarely see iPhone SEs, AirPods, Apple Watch SEs. Although I believe the iPhone SE is slightly more popular than usual this year due to the insane prices.
Currently, none of the Apple products are in high demand and all are in stock in most local electronics stores. The only sold out models are the 14 pro and pro max, but this is due to worldwide stock shortages rather than great sales.
This is the worst year for apple in Japan I've seen in a long time, and I think the figures will be dire when they are released in April, the end of the Japanese fiscal year.