Tell me if I’m being unreasonable regarding Swedish Apple pricing

[Mockletoy]

First off, I’m an American who’s been living in Sweden for the past two years. Unfortunately the pandemic made the experience somewhat less exciting so far than it probably would have been if everyone weren’t in hiding all the time, but it’s been pretty great anyway.

To get to the point, I have a XS Max that’s starting to show its age and a 2018 15” MacBook Pro that’s going to need a new keyboard soon, since the space bar has taken to recording taps as double taps and no amount of standing on my head and spraying canned air into it while praising Steve Jobs’s memory can deter it. I’ve been putting off the repair until I bought a replacement, after which I was going to sell the stupid thing and be rid of it.

Without getting into all the numbers and boring everyone totally to death, I’ll sum up my dilemma as quickly as I can.

in the US, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 512GB is about US$20 cheaper than the equivalent iPhone 13 Pro Max. In Sweden it’s the equivalent of nearly US$200 cheaper. That’s a huge discrepancy, right?

It gets worse!

The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with an RTX 3070, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD sells for around $2k + tax in the US, or about $2150-2180 total, depending on the local sales tax rate. Here in Sweden I can get it for 18,990SEK, or about US$2200, including tax and everything. So, that’s awesome! They’re basically the same price even though VAT is 25% here versus sales tax of, say 7-9% in the US (it was 9.1% where I lived before moving here).

Also, the default warranty period in Sweden is 2 years rather than one, and it extends to at least 3 years for anything determined to be a manufacturing defect.

Now, the new 14” MacBook Pro starts at $1999 + tax, so, again, the total is just shy of $2200.

In Sweden the same machine costs the equivalent of $2770, nearly $600 more. The base model 16” is $2499 + tax in the US, or just shy of US$3500 here.

How greedy is that? I could very nearly afford to fly to the US, buy the phone and computer, and fly back for what they cost here.

Or I could just buy the Samsung and Lenovo devices for roughly the same thing they’d cost me in the US.

Anyway, I just thought someone might find it interesting to know just how thoroughly Apple is ripping these poor Swedes off. I did some Googling to try to figure out why Apple charges so much more here than Samsung and Lenovo and others do, but couldn’t find much.

To me it just looks like the richest corporation on the planet squeezing folks dry just because they can.

 

[Lioness~]

First off, I’m an American who’s been living in Sweden for the past two years. Unfortunately the pandemic made the experience somewhat less exciting so far than it probably would have been if everyone weren’t in hiding all the time, but it’s been pretty great anyway.

To get to the point, I have a XS Max that’s starting to show its age and a 2018 15” MacBook Pro that’s going to need a new keyboard soon, since the space bar has taken to recording taps as double taps and no amount of standing on my head and spraying canned air into it while praising Steve Jobs’s memory can deter it. I’ve been putting off the repair until I bought a replacement, after which I was going to sell the stupid thing and be rid of it.

Without getting into all the numbers and boring everyone totally to death, I’ll sum up my dilemma as quickly as I can.

in the US, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 512GB is about US$20 cheaper than the equivalent iPhone 13 Pro Max. In Sweden it’s the equivalent of nearly US$200 cheaper. That’s a huge discrepancy, right?

It gets worse!

The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with an RTX 3070, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD sells for around $2k + tax in the US, or about $2150-2180 total, depending on the local sales tax rate. Here in Sweden I can get it for 18,990SEK, or about US$2200, including tax and everything. So, that’s awesome! They’re basically the same price even though VAT is 25% here versus sales tax of, say 7-9% in the US (it was 9.1% where I lived before moving here).

Also, the default warranty period in Sweden is 2 years rather than one, and it extends to at least 3 years for anything determined to be a manufacturing defect.

Now, the new 14” MacBook Pro starts at $1999 + tax, so, again, the total is just shy of $2200.

In Sweden the same machine costs the equivalent of $2770, nearly $600 more. The base model 16” is $2499 + tax in the US, or just shy of US$3500 here.

How greedy is that? I could very nearly afford to fly to the US, buy the phone and computer, and fly back for what they cost here.

Or I could just buy the Samsung and Lenovo devices for roughly the same thing they’d cost me in the US.

Anyway, I just thought someone might find it interesting to know just how thoroughly Apple is ripping these poor Swedes off. I did some Googling to try to figure out why Apple charges so much more here than Samsung and Lenovo and others do, but couldn’t find much.

To me it just looks like the richest corporation on the planet squeezing folks dry just because they can.

Apple are just charging regarding to the taxes they pay as well. They are not the bad boy in this drama, if there is any. Just a different political and tax system in Sweden vs.US.
Then customers of course pay some more taxes on their cherished Apple stuff in lovely Sweden, and upon that it is usually some more taxes to expect

In return from that some people may get some other services much cheaper here. People usually don’t go bancrupt if they get sick or lose their job for instance.

 

[Mockletoy]

Apple are just charging regarding to the taxes they pay as well. They are not the bad boy in this drama, if there is any. Just a different political and tax system in Sweden vs.US.
Then customers of course pay some more taxes on their cherished Apple stuff in lovely Sweden, and upon that it is usually some more taxes to expect

In return from that some people may get some other services much cheaper here. People usually don’t go bancrupt if they get sick or lose their job for instance.

If that’s the case then why don’t these mysterious extra taxes seem to impact Samsung and Lenovo the way they do Apple?

The same two phones, priced within $20 of each other in the US, but the iPhone is nearly $200 more here than the Samsung. Is Samsung cutting out $200 in profit to keep from passing the cost on to the consumer?

If so, that’s not a good look for Apple.

Ditto for the Lenovo machine, which is basically the same price here and in the US.

The math doesn’t work.

 

[TiggrToo]

First off, I’m an American who’s been living in Sweden for the past two years. Unfortunately the pandemic made the experience somewhat less exciting so far than it probably would have been if everyone weren’t in hiding all the time, but it’s been pretty great anyway.

To get to the point, I have a XS Max that’s starting to show its age and a 2018 15” MacBook Pro that’s going to need a new keyboard soon, since the space bar has taken to recording taps as double taps and no amount of standing on my head and spraying canned air into it while praising Steve Jobs’s memory can deter it. I’ve been putting off the repair until I bought a replacement, after which I was going to sell the stupid thing and be rid of it.

Without getting into all the numbers and boring everyone totally to death, I’ll sum up my dilemma as quickly as I can.

in the US, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 512GB is about US$20 cheaper than the equivalent iPhone 13 Pro Max. In Sweden it’s the equivalent of nearly US$200 cheaper. That’s a huge discrepancy, right?

It gets worse!

The Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with an RTX 3070, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD sells for around $2k + tax in the US, or about $2150-2180 total, depending on the local sales tax rate. Here in Sweden I can get it for 18,990SEK, or about US$2200, including tax and everything. So, that’s awesome! They’re basically the same price even though VAT is 25% here versus sales tax of, say 7-9% in the US (it was 9.1% where I lived before moving here).

Also, the default warranty period in Sweden is 2 years rather than one, and it extends to at least 3 years for anything determined to be a manufacturing defect.

Now, the new 14” MacBook Pro starts at $1999 + tax, so, again, the total is just shy of $2200.

In Sweden the same machine costs the equivalent of $2770, nearly $600 more. The base model 16” is $2499 + tax in the US, or just shy of US$3500 here.

How greedy is that? I could very nearly afford to fly to the US, buy the phone and computer, and fly back for what they cost here.

Or I could just buy the Samsung and Lenovo devices for roughly the same thing they’d cost me in the US.

Anyway, I just thought someone might find it interesting to know just how thoroughly Apple is ripping these poor Swedes off. I did some Googling to try to figure out why Apple charges so much more here than Samsung and Lenovo and others do, but couldn’t find much.

To me it just looks like the richest corporation on the planet squeezing folks dry just because they can.

Good luck on taking advantage of the very consumer focused warranties the EU gives you if you purchase the device in the US.

 

[Mockletoy]

Good luck on taking advantage of the very consumer focused warranties the EU gives you if you purchase the device in the US.

I don’t follow. AppleCare is international, so it doesn’t matter where you buy your Mac. I’ve had an American Mac worked on in Australia, an Australian Mac worked on in America, and will have my current American Mac worked on in Sweden (or possibly England) soon enough.

And I wouldn’t need to purchase the Samsung or Lenovo devices outside Sweden because unlike the Apple devices they aren’t comically overpriced here.

 

[KPOM]

How do prices in Sweden compare to, say, Germany or the Netherlands? Are they about the same or higher?

 

[Lioness~]

If that’s the case then why don’t these mysterious extra taxes seem to impact Samsung and Lenovo the way they do Apple?

The same two phones, priced within $20 of each other in the US, but the iPhone is nearly $200 more here than the Samsung. Is Samsung cutting out $200 in profit to keep from passing the cost on to the consumer?

If so, that’s not a good look for Apple.

Ditto for the Lenovo machine, which is basically the same price here and in the US.

The math doesn’t work.

Ok, wish you good luck in your further investigation re this. Can’t answer why and what those differences
in prices occur in Sweden re some Apple and Samsung products. Maybe they are taxed differently of some reason. Could be many reasons…..
If you want to spend your time on it, have fun. Time is also money.

 

[MacRazySwe]

Prices are insane here. No other way around it!

The REGULAR, base iPhone 13 costs approx. 1135 USD including taxes.

 

[TiggrToo]

I don’t follow. AppleCare is international, so it doesn’t matter where you buy your Mac. I’ve had an American Mac worked on in Australia, an Australian Mac worked on in America, and will have my current American Mac worked on in Sweden (or possibly England) soon enough.

And I wouldn’t need to purchase the Samsung or Lenovo devices outside Sweden because unlike the Apple devices they aren’t comically overpriced here.

I'm not talking about AppleCare. I'm talking about the bog standard consumer protection laws that provide so much more value than AppleCare that Europe has gotten for its citizens.

Here in the US we've got almost no protection period. Oh dear, did your new MacBook die 367 days after purchase and you don't have AppleCare? Well, sucks to be you...

In Europe you have at minimum TWO years protection for most cases.

 

[Mockletoy]

Yeah, and it’s even more than 2 years if it’s a known manufacturing defect.

To give Apple credit where it’s due, my 2013 MBP’s SSD died out of warranty and they fixed it for really cheap, slightly less than I’d have paid for AppleCare on the machine. It’s still chugging along to this day.

That’s one reason I don’t mind paying a bit extra for Apple products. They really do offer pretty good support compare to the others.

But these Swedish prices seem particularly egregious, especially compared to PC and Android phone prices.

 

[mectojic]

It's a problem with Sweden. Apple products in Australia are also overpriced because of taxes.

The best solution is to leave the country.

 

[Dave Y]

Often wondered this too.

VAT is obviously the main factor.

But even ex VAT the base 14” is 11% more expensive here in Sweden right now than in the US. Compared with around 9% in the Eurozone.

3-year warranty (2 in general in EU) — yes, though the onus is on you to prove a defect after the first 6 months. Maybe worth a few per cent, but less than Apple Care.

Ultimately it’s pricing what the market will bear, and Apple gets away with passing on all the taxes and a bit more to consumers and we keep buying.

Anyway, enjoy Sweden (benefits far far outweigh any disadvantages of Apple tax iyam — 15 years now).

 

[BluAffiliate]

How do prices in Sweden compare to, say, Germany or the Netherlands? Are they about the same or higher?

They rip you off in NL as well.

 

[Raebo]

Sounds like it is due to the fax tax and paying for that extended warranty.

 

[al256]

Ny Macbook Pro 14 tum kostar 23,995 kr (19,121 kr)

So 19,121 SEK to USD is $2,227.40
$2,227.40 - $1999 =
$228.4 difference between US and Swedish prices

So, konsumentköplagen gives you a three year right of compliant (Reklamatiosrätten). So that extended warranty is the cost difference. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong but from what I gathered, this is better than Australian prices.