Comments on: How much Mac for your buck? USA, Europe and Australia compared

By: Iain

Iain — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:18:37 +0000

Australia’s listed prices include 10% GST, like the UK 17.5% VAT, while US prices do not include the variable state sales tax. Mind you, all the prices have gone up bigtime in the last 6 months since the AU$ went down to ~US$0.64. Still cheap iPods here though, as the prices were set when the AU$ was high.

By: David

David — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:50:07 +0000

The theory I heard was that the Australian Dollar versus US dollar is very volatile, and since Apple doesn’t change its prices once stated, they had to factor in any possible changes in exchange rate so that no matter how it changed Apple would still make a profit in USD.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:36:44 +0000

You Americans, Europeans and Aussies have such great luck with your LOW Mac prices.

We in Israel pay the following (translated into USD):
MacBook 13″ white, basic, USD 1,790
MacBook Air, 1.8 GHz, 80 GB HD, USD 3,380
iMac 24″ 3.08 GHz, basic, USD 3,750

FYI: all Macs come from Macs central warehouse in Ireland or straight from Taiwan. There are NO import duties on computers in Israel.

Mind you: these prices are lower now than a year ago when the official importer charged about double, causing lots of Israelis flying to the USA to buy their Macs over there.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:01:03 +0000

Hi,

Does anyone know the apple product prices in for example India or Hong Kong?

By: Angus MacLean

Angus MacLean — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:25:16 +0000

I’m sorry, but reality for the Australians isn’t as bad as the article tries to point out. In the excel file the prices for Apple products in Australia are actually WITH the VAT, as opposed to without for all the other countries. So the comparison isn’t really fair. Macs are in fact cheaper in Oz than in Sweden. (As we say in Swedish: Gör om, gör rätt! /Angus, swede living in Oz atm

By: Gary Hodes

Gary Hodes — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:53:54 +0000

I believe the answer is to do with economies of scale, and the cost of doing business in each country.

If Apple shipped generic products to all countries from a single office and a single warehouse and provided support from a single location and had a single international advertising campaign, then the prices would probably tend towards eachother- not least because entrepreneurs would start to exploit any price differences by shipping between countries.

The fact is, Apple has entire distribution organisations in each country, which have to be paid for. The bigger the market, the smaller the cost of this organisation relative to total sales, so prices can be lower.

Each organisation will have varying costs, depending on the cost of doing business in each country. Some countries have relatively high taxes, employment costs, rents, etc – and these all increase the cost of doing business which ultimately increases the prices if APple is to maintain its margins.

Yours truly

Gary Hodes

By: Daniel Howard

Daniel Howard — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:13:45 +0000

Freight? Australia is way closer to China and Malaysia than those other markets . . . are there price variations within the EU? Sounds like it . . . those recults might have been interesting to see.

Cheers,
-danny

By: Henrik

Henrik — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:23:02 +0000

Charles Wilkes:
Have you considered to buy a MacBook in the US, and a separate 24″ monitor in the Philippines ?

“I suspect they just charge what they can get away with in each market”
But if they lowered the prices by 10 % maybe the number of sold items would be much higher ?
I have tried to switch my parents to Mac for over a year, but the iMacs are too expensive for them, and the Mini is the option if Apple upgrades it.

By: Hannes Helander

Hannes Helander — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:27:14 +0000

I am surprised that no one yet has mentioned price strategy, every company tries to make their customers pay as much as they are willing to pay. Anythig else would be inefficient – if you think an iMac is worth 2000 USD why should the manufacturer not try to make you pay that price?

perhaps customers in Europe, an Australia are used to higher prices for this type of goods and thus are willing to pay more than in the US.

You know even Apple is doing this to earn money!!

Happy owner of a 24 iMac + iPhone bought ridiculously expensive in Sweden! …hmmm but anyway I must have thought it was worth the price…I had plenty of personal computing alternatives….

By: Kenneth

Kenneth — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:58:02 +0000

The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and Spain are all in the EU customs union, so the external customs tariff is the same for imports to all of these countries.

As you say though, the UK generally always has the lowest prices on Apple products in Europe, even after VAT is stripped out. Why this is I would definitely like to know.

I doubt Apple specifically includes a localization penalty in its pricing – and the Spanish language is actually used in the US as well.

I suspect they just charge what they can get away with in each market (although aren’t the ex-VAT prices in the eurozone countries – so France, Germany and Spain in this study – now harmonized?).