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Apple Raising App Store Prices in Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa
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You have forgotten the fact that in India, Goods and services tax for apple products is 18 percent and add to that the humongous import duty. This is not because of Apple. The reason iphone cost way more in India is because of the current government’s tax structure.
Many countries have super high taxes on electronics - which is why you often see foreign tourists in electronic shops in the US in big cites like New York & LA
Why would it be priced the same? I can't buy Chinese and Indian goods in the US at their home prices. Imported products have a markup. I am surprised it's not far higher.
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The currency exchange rates are not applicable like we do it. Big corporations hedge their positions and even indulge in currency trading through their subsidiaries and make tons and tons of money at the same time they bill it on the consumers as well. They get double dip especially these international organisations. I worked for a bunker corporation for ships, they made more profits in hedging than actual sale of fuel where the margin was very very tight & low. If you dig deep it won’t show pretty face for the regulators
Not sure how it is in NZ, but in the EU Apple's prices include VAT, while the US price is exclusive of sales tax. Also, there might be customs fees/import duty etc that inflate the price. Just using the exchange rate to calculate what the price "should be" is misleading.
Welp, cannot fault Apple on this one, at least for my country, Indonesia. I can confirm that we now have 10% tax on digital services from foreign companies, pushing the digital divide even further. Spotify, Netflix, all have adjusted their prices.
The original idea was similar to tariffs, a protectionism method to protect local businesses. The problem is, there's hardly any competing local versions of many modern digital services, so this ends up being a tax forced upon everyone. I mean the ones paying are still us, the people/consumers. The revenue of the foreign companies are still the same since they passed on the whole tax to consumers.
that sucks so bad. Consumers have to pay even more money in this pandemic time.
Note: kerjaan si Jonny plate kampret. 😂
Well, you're in the right place here.
There are about 150 or so countries. So there will be some countries changing things every year.
Maybe you could look up whether there are taxes that Apple (or the customer) needs to pay in India. In the UK for example, there is 20% VAT, plus there are different warranty rules where Apple would have to fix phones in the UK after two years or more, when the same phone in the USA is covered by one year warranty only. And some countries put "luxury" taxes on expensive imported items.
Apple products were ridiculously priced before 18% IGST in July 2017 as well. Like I said, around 2011 they were priced quite fairly, with some premium towards import duties. My MacBook Pro 15" Late 2011 was priced at INR 124900 (USD 2400) as against its pricing for USA at USD 2200. Fair enough. In 2016, a TB 13" MBP 2.9 GHz retailed at USD 1799 in USA and INR 155900 (USD 2300) in India. That was USD 500 more.
Phones have been traditionally costly. In 2011, iPhone 4s 32 GB was USD 749 in USA but Indian price was nearly USD 1000. In 2012 with the introduction of iPhone 5 this gap widened and was taken to another level in 2013 with 5s. It's been crazier and crazier ever since Cook took over the reigns at Apple.
The iPhone 5s was priced at INR 72000 in India. 1 USD was INR 62 approximately, at the time. That amounts to USD 1160 approx. Apple's pricing is not about tax rates in India as much as just weirdness.
The 18% GST argument does not really fly. Prior to 18% GST from July 2017, there was 15% Service Tax. It is not due to GST that prices are so high when it comes to Apple. No other international entity is charging this way as Apple does in India.
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Import duty is also playing a huge factor. Completely built iphone from China will obviously cost more than those made in India ones as it will attract import duty. Import duty is justified because it helps make in India initiative. See, the GST of 18 percent is aslo huge compared to the taxes we usually see in Europe and America.
Not necessarily.
In Canada just some 7yrs back our dollar was worth more than the USA dollar for more than 4mths in twice a year and Apple took that long before adjusting pricing (I'm taking over 20 cents exchange rate) too. Apple does what they want when they want when it comes to currency exchange rates and pricing in their stores.
GST increases the price here in NZ, which means for the price of the iPhone converted into NZD is a $179.32 increase in price, increasing the iPhone price to $1,374.779. So yeah, even with GST increasing the price I wonder what that $124 difference between what the price should be and the advertised price is for. My guess is it's "free shipping".
Me too. When I buy in Singapore, It costs 1649 SGD. Actually when it was converted, it is 1399 SGD. So when it arrives in Indonesia, it costs 17.5 % of taxes from Singapore price not USD
No.
What prevents the use of regional prices in App Store? Cyberpunk 2077 prices for different countries in Steam: https://steamdb.info/app/1091500/