iPhone 14: Cheapest Country to Buy in 37 Countries | Hacker News Reader

iPhone 14: Cheapest Country to Buy in 37 Countries

nukeni.com

33 pointsmfiguiere51 comments

Not sure if the site was updated, but there are multiple comments here about sales tax missing for the US price. The site clearly states it added that tax for Canada and the US, and shows two prices for each country reflecting the lowest and highest tax applicable based on where you buy the phone.

Yes (it could have been more explicit on the list) - but the prices are there. They did a good job with this

A lack of state sales tax is part of the reason that the Apple Store in Portland, Oregon sells so many iPhones (in quantity) to tourists (particularly from Asia). Well, that and the fact that Portland is on the West Coast and has an international airport. They sell a lot of laptops and desktop computers to the same clientele but iPhones are the major draw.

Source: A close friend in management at the Portland store.

In the laptop market, Apple seems to be a better value purchase, but for some reason the smartphone market seems to be a huge premium for not much value compared to the competition.

I understand that in western countries there are network effects like iMessage, etc. A good Samsung or stock android-ish phone almost always seems like a more versatile/capable device.

There was a time when I heard that there were great iOS only apps but I don't know of any in 2022.

> There was a time when I heard that there were great iOS only apps but I don't know of any in 2022.

Scenic, a motorcycle navigation app [0]. They've been working on an Android version for a while now, but as far as I'm aware it's still not done.

I'm more or less in the market for a new phone, since my iPhone 7 is getting long in the tooth. I've looked at Android, but I'm afraid they won't be supported for as long as my iPhone (which is more than 5 yo and running the latest iOS – don't know if the upcoming release next week supports it, though). I also don't know what the durability / water resistance situation is on non-flagship devices [2]: it must be able to work for hours on end in the rain or sun.

I don't use my phone much, basically only for GPS and... calling people (on the phone). So, I'd hate to be forced to upgrade a perfectly good phone just because it hasn't seen in update in three years [1].

---

[0] https://scenic.app/

Its main shtick is being able to offer "curvy" navigation, meaning not the quickest / fastest way between points A and B.

[1] I know about alternative ROMs, I used to run one, but I'm past that. I want an appliance-like phone, and for that, the iPhone is best in my eyes.

[2] I know flagship devices have got this down, I used to own a Galaxy S5 which was great. But at that point, it's going to be as expensive as an iPhone, so I might as well get that. iOS gets out of my way like I could only dream about while on Android.

They like quite some personal identifiable information:

Location Contact info Identifiers Usage data

But it does looks very nice, so I am on the fence...

So this is a navigation app, not sure how that would work without access to location data. Selecting "while using" works fine.

You can also download offline maps, so it works without internet access (still needs it to download the maps).

Not sure what the others are, I usually err on the side of denying access to apps, and I haven't had any issue.

There are many factors. Where I live, for example. Most apps are developed for mobile only. When you don’t have a desktop version of many essential applications, it justifies a more expensive phone. When I divide the price by the amount of time I spend on the device, it seems the results are somewhat equal between the laptop and the iPhone.

> Apple .. for some reason the smartphone market seems to be a huge premium for not much value compared to the competition.

I used my iPhone 6 for 6 years and Apple once replaced the battery for a nominal fee. It got security updates all that time. I feel that was good value for money no Android could ever match unless you install FOSS on it.

The US price is pre-tax while others look post-tax. Also at least in the EU there is a longer warranty.

Yes it's two year warranty[0].

Although keep in mind that AFAIK this applies to consumers and if you buy with your business it might not apply -- learned this the hard way when my charger broke after 18 months.

[0] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...

> if you buy with your business it might not apply

That is why I buy them private and then declare the invoice at the company.

Apple's warranty in the EU is not any longer.

The 2-year "warranty" required by law is not the same and only covers defects existing from the time of purchase, and after 6 months the burden of proof falls to the customer. In practice I've never seen this play out because almost all manufacturers (with Apple being an exception) offer 2-3 years of full warranty here either way.

Apple can try to be the exception, except most European have consumer protection agencies that will do the right thing when consumers fill a complaint.

That is how I canceled my Vodafone contract, while Vodafone was playing word games on me and refusing to accept my rights as consumer.

After filling a complaint, and getting a call from the consumer goverment agency, apparently it was all in order to cancel the contract.

Same will apply to Apple.

Similar story in Australia. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what a manufacturer says the official warranty is (for a consumer purchase), they can’t reduce the statutory rights to be less just because it’s in the warranty fine print. Though there’s also not an official list of “this device has a statutory warranty guaranteed of X years”, it’s left to be whatever is determined to be a reasonable expectation based on the price of the item, expected use, and a handful of other factors. I’ve not had to test it with an iPhone specifically, but I’d suspect it that a >$2000 device would be an easy case to make for a reasonable expectation of working beyond 2 years.

Not true, there is second year of warranty that needs to be given to customer by store where device was purchased. Only difference is you will ask you for receipt. (I work in Apple authorised repair store)

As I said, the 2-year period mandated by law is not a standard warranty, isn't as comprehensive and usually has a different name because of that. Most companies know that it's not worth it to debate people about it and just offer 2-3 years. Apple doesn't at least officially, it's also not a big secret that they've denied responsibility for faults in their products in the past.

Though on average Apple most likely isn't the worst company to deal with.

It depends. If you've bought your device from Apple, defects will be covered by them in this 2-year period. At least this was my experience in Germany. Two times I encountered a very helpful Genius that issued a repair although my 1-year warranty was up.

Don't know why you're downvoted; At least for Germany that's exactly the situation.

And an actual SIM slot

Quite a lot of this has to do with VAT which is always advertised as part of the price. In most of these countries I know they have VAT rates over 20%. In the US, sales tax is between 0 and 7.25 percent and is never advertised as part of the price.

The US pays for this lack of VAT in other ways, either as taxes or in the services the government doesn’t provide.

It’s easy to forget all this while having iPhone sticker shock, but it’s rather brilliant on the part of the governments since everyone is pissed at Apple for overcharging, not thinking about whether VAT is a good idea.

Swedish VAT is 25%, but the price is ~35% higher than the US. I think this is because the Swedish krona has lost value against the dollar over the last year, but I don’t think Apple has actually raised prices in Sweden (for the previous iPhone lineup).

It’s not just VAT. There are also import duties, taxes on salaries and land (there’s at least a warehouse, maybe also a physical store as well as a few pair of hands in play along the value chain of selling an iPhone in Sweden)

Maybe salaries in Sweden are higher than us as well.

Apple tech sold in USA is also manufactured overseas, and should be subject to shipping, imports, salaries and so on.

Yes and the difference of those adds to the difference of the end price.

I don’t think those things matter much on the whole, and I also think Swedish (tech) salaries are actually lower than what they’re paying in the US.

But the Swedish krona has lost ~22% against the USD in a year. So a 10% margin seems pretty reasonable given they haven’t raised prices during that year and nobody knows how the currency will fluctuate the upcoming year.

> It’s easy to forget all this while having iPhone sticker shock, but it’s rather brilliant on the part of the governments since everyone is pissed at Apple for overcharging, not thinking about whether VAT is a good idea.

Oh, we're pissed at the government too... here in slovenia, we still have a "temporarily" higher VAT (literally called "crisis VAT") due to the 2008 economic crisis.

Isn’t it like 11% if you buy in New York? Like there’s a state and a government sales tax or something?

I remember being quite disappointed on my potential savings when I was on vacation in the us and thought I could make a steal on a MacBook Air.

There could be a local sales tax there. I was referencing the state rates which is what most people would pay.

Other countries aren't messing with the price tags though. they simply show the final, total price to be paid. Like if you have that amount of cash and nothing more, you will get the ware you are buying.

So in any practical case Apple is being dishonest (due to law) with pricing. Also let's not forget that when Euro was like 20% higher than Dollar, Apple pretended that 1 USD = 1 EUR. There are no possible "tax" or "laws" to weasel out of that, it was pure and simple price hike for no reason at all. (the VAT for EU was added on top of the already increased price due to incorrect conversion rate, so that wasn't it)

I can't believe there's a place (Turkey) where iPhone is pricier then here (Brazil).

As you can see, the price for iPhone here is almost double then US retail prices. Whereas purchasing power is probably less than half of an average US Citizen. Having an iPhone is absolutely a status symbol for Brazilians.

Because the inflation in Turkey is skyrocketing atm. https://www.ft.com/content/0d217384-7815-44b1-9b3e-d45236342...

Are you sure that you compare final price in all the countries?

For example in the USA the price probably does not have sales tax, but in the European countries the price will most likely include VAT.

You’re right, but a base iPhone for 1000+ EUR is crazy.

No not really. That's the price here for high end smart phones, and it fit fine with purchasing power.

The base iPhone 14 is an upper mid-range phone, not high-end.

GP commenter could be in Switzerland and he meant that it's crazy cheap.

That’s the entry-level device in the latest Apple generation. It’s not a low-end phone, but it’s not high-end either.

Looking at the iPhone Pro, they somehow listed the US twice, with what I assume is an arbitrarily added sales tax:

United States US$999.00

Japan US$1,039.46

Hong Kong US$1,095.50

United States US$1,113.88

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is just basic tech rag news.

Tourists* in Japan can shop tax free (*yes I know)

What do you know?

That it’s very difficult to enter Japan as a tourist right now because of Covid.

Ah ok, thanks clarifying. I guess that only affects you when you need a visa, or not?

Currently, it seems you always need a visa – either from the local consulate, or via an agency in Japan...

What's up with prices in Turkey?

Because of the ongoing inflation of the Turkish Lira, there's a huge margin added to imported products

Taxes and more taxes. Those who want to buy iPhone 14 Pro (128 GB) for 39 thousand 999 TL have to pay about 17 thousand 902 TL tax.

Exchange rate jumps very quickly. Apple does not like to update it often. So they project the expected value for next few months. Most likely they take the rate somewhere between 20-21TL. Last year today 1$=8.47TL now 1$=18.24TL. We try to buy things when the rate goes up but price is not updated yet. You can “save” 20-30% if lucky.

Import taxes is also much higher.

It's not the exchange rates, it's the tax rates. About half of the price is a combination of various taxes.

In Turkey, after the 1999 Earthquake disaster they introduced "luxury consumption tax" or ÖTV on pretty much everything that is not essential goods, which is compounding with VAT(you first add the ÖTV, then you add VAT to the total amount).

To enforce the sky high tax on stuff like mobile phones, carriers are required to register every single IMEI with the government(the pretext was that they are doing it against terrorist who might use phones to do nasty things). So, if you buy a phone from abroad you can use it for 3 months(was extended to 1 year during the pandemic) and then carriers block your phone until you personally register your IMEI with the government. The registration fee is absurd(200$ at the last update) and you can do it once every 2 years and the phone can be used only with the number you registered with.

Also, Apple(which has multiple Apple Store's in Turkey) is prohibited to provide repairs to phones bought from abroad.

Remind me to book a business trip to the US and buy the new Macbook Air M2 and the iPhone.

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