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iPhone SE Priced at Premium in Australia and Elsewhere
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Does not change the fact, SE is their bargain offering - which is why charging more than the VAT comes across rather greedily.
Whilst the Apple buyers tend to be less price sensitive; it's $250 lower than the next model; and true that higher international prices cushions for fx volatilities. It's a douche move.
As GBP appreciated again relative to the dollar after the EU thing (hopefully) - the gap will further disconnect.
Whilst the Apple buyers tend to be less price sensitive; it's $250 lower than the next model; and true that higher international prices cushions for fx volatilities. It's a douche move.
As GBP appreciated again relative to the dollar after the EU thing (hopefully) - the gap will further disconnect.
Speaking of premium... The iPad Pro 9.7" 128GB WiFi stands at C$1,000 
Up C$230 from the 128GB Air2.
At this point that's not only outrageous but disrespectful.
Prices have gone mad over the last 12 months and it's not just an exchange rate problem.
Sorry Apple you're done abusing my hard earned $s
Up C$230 from the 128GB Air2.At this point that's not only outrageous but disrespectful.
Prices have gone mad over the last 12 months and it's not just an exchange rate problem.
Sorry Apple you're done abusing my hard earned $s
Okay, I've done the maths!
Selecting a few different Apple products, and pricing them up before addition of taxes, and comparing them to the US $ price.
Note - this is based upon xe.com currency conversion which no consumer exchange would ever offer, so you could add a few % to these prices if you wanted a realistic currency valuation.. but we'll stick to the bank rates for simplicity here.
As you can see, the UK actually does pretty well, with several products actually cheaper here. The biggest difference is indeed for the iPhone SE, at 4% more in the UK. But this can easily be accounted for by currency and import figures.
So in fairness, I think Apple has converted the $ amount, and rounded up or down as needed to make the GBP a round xx9 figure!
Australia and Euro-countries such as Germany do slightly less well, however.
Only one product out of the seven I selected was cheaper in these countries than the US.
The remainder all saw an increase of up to 15%.
Again currency and import eat into that figure...
But I certainly don't feel this is as much of an Apple foreign-country markup tax as many are suggesting.
The higher prices paid in these countries are far more a result of local VAT / sales taxes than any Apple initiated-markup. UK VAT at 20% really hikes the prices. But that's hardly Apple's fault.
Selecting a few different Apple products, and pricing them up before addition of taxes, and comparing them to the US $ price.
Note - this is based upon xe.com currency conversion which no consumer exchange would ever offer, so you could add a few % to these prices if you wanted a realistic currency valuation.. but we'll stick to the bank rates for simplicity here.
As you can see, the UK actually does pretty well, with several products actually cheaper here. The biggest difference is indeed for the iPhone SE, at 4% more in the UK. But this can easily be accounted for by currency and import figures.
So in fairness, I think Apple has converted the $ amount, and rounded up or down as needed to make the GBP a round xx9 figure!
Australia and Euro-countries such as Germany do slightly less well, however.
Only one product out of the seven I selected was cheaper in these countries than the US.
The remainder all saw an increase of up to 15%.
Again currency and import eat into that figure...
But I certainly don't feel this is as much of an Apple foreign-country markup tax as many are suggesting.
The higher prices paid in these countries are far more a result of local VAT / sales taxes than any Apple initiated-markup. UK VAT at 20% really hikes the prices. But that's hardly Apple's fault.
It would be nice is Apple was consistent. Ok they are consistently expensive.
So comparing the Cdn pricing.
iPhone 5SE
16 GB US$399.00 vs C$579.00 a difference of C$180.00 for an exchange of $1.4511
64 GB US$499.00 vs C$709.00 a difference of C$210.00 for an exchange of $1.4208
Current spot rate is around 1.305
The 9.7 iPad pro is in the 1.33 to 1.34 range.
The 12.9 Pro is 1.31
Air2 is between 1.20 to 1.25
Mini4 is at 1.10
So why the difference when these two devices were announced at the same time? And look at the differences in the various product prices.
The best deal in relation to exchange rate is the Mini4.
So comparing the Cdn pricing.
iPhone 5SE
16 GB US$399.00 vs C$579.00 a difference of C$180.00 for an exchange of $1.4511
64 GB US$499.00 vs C$709.00 a difference of C$210.00 for an exchange of $1.4208
Current spot rate is around 1.305
The 9.7 iPad pro is in the 1.33 to 1.34 range.
The 12.9 Pro is 1.31
Air2 is between 1.20 to 1.25
Mini4 is at 1.10
So why the difference when these two devices were announced at the same time? And look at the differences in the various product prices.
The best deal in relation to exchange rate is the Mini4.
Even if you take the salestax into account the product is a lot more expensive in the EU.
$399 = €355 + 21% NL tax = €429,55
however they charge us €489. So we pay an additional €60 or $67
But the pound is seriously undervalued right now based on historical averages and there is STILL a premium.
Thanks.
Here's the Canada comparison for the same 7 products as above:
So some of the recent products are certainly a few percent more expensive, but there are several cheaper, such as the MacBook.
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This, plus the fact that the new 9.7 inch iPad "pro" is priced at ¥64800, somewhat around with $599 with today's FX rate, making the pricing of SE unreasonable.
At least they should unify their FX rate, preferably with the lower one.
You seem to have forgotten to take in to account import tax. There's also going to be 'thuiskopieheffing' added in there along the way too.
This level of premium has always existed for every Apple product and can easily be explained by stronger consumer protection laws in Europe, UK and Australia, such as mandatory or implied minimum 2 year warranties for electronic devices.
I got a free repair for an out of warranty 2.5 year-old laptop because of them, and so I should for a high end MacBook Pro costing as much as it does it should be built for a minimum guaranteed life of 3 years without having to pay extra.
I got a free repair for an out of warranty 2.5 year-old laptop because of them, and so I should for a high end MacBook Pro costing as much as it does it should be built for a minimum guaranteed life of 3 years without having to pay extra.
But, to my knowledge, the 'Apple Store' doesn't exist in New Zealand, and Australia. They are all sold through resellers only, or direct. Could this be 'negotiated pricing' through those resellers, rather than Apple just gouging people 'because they can'?
Sales tax is not the same thing as VAT. Also, there are quite a few states in the U.S. where anyone can go into an Apple Store and buy one and pay no sales tax at all.
They don't seem, they ARE a lot cheaper in the U.S. I can pick one up for $399 out the door from an Apple Store when it goes on sale, because I live a couple hours away from a tax free state.
Sometimes it's worth investing in a more premium product. My mid-2011 iMac 21.5" developed an LCD panel fault just shy of owning it three years.
Could have cost me £480 out of warranty to get it replaced; in the end it was just £30 for the engineers' report (via KRCS).
Exercised my rights under the SoGA and got it replaced for nothing.
In terms of the U.K. I don't feel our pricing SIM Free is that bad... And it isn't Apple's fault currency around the Globe is all over the place.
A good deal of this has to do with various value add taxes (VAT) in those countries but even after factoring the VAT out there's still an increase in relative prices when converted to US dollars.
I would suspect it has more to do with hedging currency fluctuations than anything else. Otherwise if the dollar strengthens it starts eating into margins. Rather than floating the prices daily/weekly/monthly to accommodate the changing exchange rates they build in a buffer to protect against movement and keep a static price in each market. Then likely round up to the next nice sounding number too.
There could also be strategic considerations coming into play market by market as well but I'd bet most of this has to do with currency hedge.
In a lot of markets this probably equates to an easy win for Apple but there are some markets whose currencies move significantly against the dollar and could see big losses quickly for Apple. There have been cases where Apple has had to make pricing adjustments mid-cycle as a result (Russia comes to mind) but building some pad in can help minimize those situations.
At $399 just like the new price for Air 2, you would think it's at least priced the same as that. Nope, for China a 16GB Air 2 is now ￥2888(~$450), but iPhone SE is at ￥3288(~$500). Not much difference, but still odd.
Depends whether I spoke to a retail clerk, had a runner retrieve my pre-order from the back of the store, or consulted with the genius bar before purchasing. Standard USA tipping etiquette for Apple Store is:
retail clerk: 15%
runner: 5.7%
Genius: 22% is the wait was less than an hour, 18% if over an hour
You should write that down in case you visit a US Apple Store, it can be quite confusing.