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Comment by sbuk | Hacker News Reader

Consequences of poorly performing GBP and Euro.

>Consequences of poorly performing GBP and Euro.

In the comparison I have used current exchange rates. GBP or PLN don't have a tendency to drop down by 10% overnight. I also do not see the reason why Apple couldn't offer the option to charge in USD, in Europe many banks offer currency conversion without fees for online card payments, such as Monzo in the UK.

It’s simple, their finance team’s would be made significantly more complicated and costly - eg now you get to do extra FX management on your stores local sales for VAT. And virtually all their local customers will be wanting/ only able to pay in their local currency anyway. All to sell at an arguably lower price ?

Not to mention, potential higher operating costs in some countries (which means the cost to provide these items is also higher). For example, labor and energy costs are higher in the UK and Europe than in the US.

Someone else mentioned that warranties are required to be longer in the EU, which would increase the OEM's operating cost as well.

That all sounds reasonable, except why would Polish operating costs and warranty costs to be much higher than UK?

I'm not sure about Poland, perhaps there are import fees or other costs that are higher than other places.

I have two hypotheses:

1. Maybe it's not UK vs. Poland difference, but UK vs. EU difference?

2. There may be less iPhone users in Poland, so the prices reflect lack of economies of scale?

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