Apple Begins Assembling iPhone 15 in Brazil

[Haiku_Oezu]

Apple has not yet reduced the retail price of the iPhone 15 in Brazil, where it continues to sell for R$7,300 (approximately $1,460) for the 128GB model.

Of course they haven’t… 🙄

 

[avz]

So now it's "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in Brazil."

There was a brief period of four days in Brazil's history where its flag was identical to the US flag. So you can say it virtually "Assembled in USA".

 

[belsommy]

There was a brief period of four days in Brazil's history where its flag was identical to the US flag. So you can say it virtually "Assembled in USA".

Yeah it could be "Designed by Apple in North America. Assembled in South America."

 

[jadeforest]

Why not just assemble the iPhones and all the other products in California?
Apple could easily do this WITHOUT increasing the prices, that's how massive Apple's margins are.

 

[Branaghan]

I don’t understand why Apple charges $1400 for an $800 phone in Brazil.

Import duties. Apple is presumably paying about $600 in import duty tax to Brazil.

It's a waste of time to sell Apple products in Brazil. Period.

First: very few people buy from Apple's official website here. This is very, very rare.

The last time I used them was to get the Earpods. Amazon was said to sell fakes (it seems they were sued for that). I would do the same for the charger.

About smartphones and tablets: even if you find your favorite smuggler in eBay-like websites (and what they sell is legit, so it's the same as buying directly from Apple), these people also pay hefty import fees (we all do, and if it was 60% before, it's now up to 90), they just tell it didn't cost that much to Customs. Despite that, all devices are so expensive, that most people can't afford (there's no magic here).

What smugglers attempt is very much like someone buying a premium item in the United States for 900 and not 1000 $. Even so, paying 900 for anything is very different from what used to be 10-15 years ago, when the economy was not destroyed. In a distant past, every US dollar = 2 or 3 of our money. Now it's 1 = 5. That's a lot. Notice the conversion does not include import fees. If they were ZERO, it would still be impossible to buy.

If we are also paying more for everything: foods, gas, rent, other goods... it's a lot harder to import anything from the U.S., the prices are impossible to follow. That is the reason 2017 was the last time I invested in a top Apple product. Not that I used to do this every year, it's simply because my salary would need to have tripled to afford a new iPhone or iPad in 2024.

When it's cheaper to buy a vehicle instead of the latest iPhone in Brazil, you know these products became a niche, like Louis Vuitton bags...