It's to bad it never works the other way.....
Countries which currencies that appreciate against the USD never gets a cut, Apple simply pockets the difference.
Case in point, Swiss Francs is up +70% the last 20 years but we never got a price reduction.
You may not like it, but it’s actually required to follow GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) to offset valuations especially in volatile economic situations.
Notice that when there are large fluctuations in currency valuations, Apple as a corporation must account for those by factoring in a basic worst case scenario if the other currencies can further lose value to the Dollar.
What people in Switzerland miss is the VAT is the highest of anywhere in the world. I have Swiss friends who drive across the border weekly to buy mostly food. They’re only allowed to buy a certain value of it per trip or time period (not sure), because Germany has much lower prices.
The EU also has a VAT that’s somewhere around 30%. This is essentially a tariff but these countries get away without calling it this. So the price has the taxes built into it.
When buying products in the USA, most states and tax jurisdictions, buyers must pay an additional tax on top of the Apple price listed on website and in stores. A few States don’t have a sales tax (ex: Oregon) and a few other states don’t have a state income tax (ex: Washington).
In the end, the best place I have found to buy electronics has been Hong Kong. But USA can be a good second place as well as Singapore depending on the products.
I live in Thailand, and just recently they stopped all tariffs on electronics. It made a huge difference in the price of Apple products where most are now cheaper here than USA by the time add sales tax to products in the USA.
Anyways, I think people get mad at Apple and sometimes they do things that can tick people off. But the currency situation, tariffs, and VAT are all factors beyond Apple’s control. Sorry, just the way it is, they’re following the law.
