So you are saying literally:
- If you get a raise, you don't get a raise.
- If the price increases it is not a price increase.
Got it.
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iPhone 14 Pro Max Why do Europeans complain about non-existent price increases?
- Thread starter JPack
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- If you get a raise, you don't get a raise.
- If the price increases it is not a price increase.
Got it.
You’re trying to be sarcastic, but you’ve ironically explained it exactly right haha!
I believe it’s unfair looking at prices of another country from the perspective of the US. From the people in the EU and many other countries, a price increase is a price increase, regardless of currency exchange, unless they’re expats and got paid in USD.
The same in my country. iPhone prices keep increasing YoY. It’s so weird that The 2022 SE was launched at higher prices than the iPhone 11 over here. I shudder thinking how much the 14 will be priced over here later this year. I’m debating if I should buy the 13 mini now before the possibility of Apple repricing them. They did it before, eg the 7 Plus I bought in early 2020, got a price increase later in the year.
The same in my country. iPhone prices keep increasing YoY. It’s so weird that The 2022 SE was launched at higher prices than the iPhone 11 over here. I shudder thinking how much the 14 will be priced over here later this year. I’m debating if I should buy the 13 mini now before the possibility of Apple repricing them. They did it before, eg the 7 Plus I bought in early 2020, got a price increase later in the year.
People here in Europe are discussing the price of everything going up because that’s what has happened. A 4 pint of milk was £1.10 in May but now it’s £1.55, so it’s gone up in price, not adjusted. Every product sold has increased by some degree and iPhones are just something else. The consequences of this are that reports suggest the iPhone 14 has suffered a drop in demand here so ultimately Apple have lost out like many other companies competing during this period of high inflation.
Great point, and it seems like a very relevant thing to be discussing--that many people now have to reconsider all of their buying decisions. Regardless of currency conversions the OP's point made, it's somewhat of a logic fallacy when the budget changes are the main concern there.
14 Pro starts at 10499 dkk where 13 Pro came in at just 9055 dkk. That’s 1444 more to pay for the consumer no matter what U.S. consumers pay or what is taxes or hidden fees.
-Do you honestly think our (European) salaries have been matched to compensate for increasing costs of nearly everything? 😑
Even if the math checks out, our money is still worth less while the average income hasn’t gone up to match what we were earning one or two years ago.
Like, if Europeans earn €1 in 2021 and a liter of milk costs €1 in 2021 then Europeans can afford a liter of milk in 2021.
But if the value of the euro drops in 2022 and one liter of milk then goes up to €2 while our salaries are still at about €1 then we Europeans can’t afford milk in 2022.
Yes, your math checks out. But we can’t math ourselves out of our personal finances and budgets when our salaries are worth a lot less than they were 1-2 years ago.
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Guys you know about nominal prices, inflation, inflation-adjusted prices etc?
Minimal research will give you this for example: https://www.self.inc/info/iphone-price-index/
Note the first two points (these are inflation-adjusted, i.e. "real" prices):
Minimal research will give you this for example: https://www.self.inc/info/iphone-price-index/
Note the first two points (these are inflation-adjusted, i.e. "real" prices):
- The price of the iPhone 13 is 81% higher ($437) on average around the world than the first iPhone models
- In the US, the cost of iPhones has risen over 60% since launch in 2007, outstripping local purchasing power (42%) meaning an iPhone now costs $88 more in real terms
TIL 13 Pro £949 vs 14 Pro £1,099 isn't a price increase, thanks OP.
Not Apple's fault, but in the mid-long term it's definitely Apple's problem. This is likely to be a significant headwind to their global income, and it doesn't look like it will resolve itself anytime soon. Going forward Apple will have to make a judgement on whether lower international sales is more of an impact than cheaper US base prices than they might like. US sales seem to be around 35% of their total global sales for reference. Europe, the worst affected region, is about 25%. I expect for top end products they will just take any lost sales on the chin, but for entry level products where pricing is more of a factor?
It might be Apple's problem, but probably not too big of a deal, yet.
It can become a problem in terms of supply/demand and logistics, where there will be disproportionate export/import of iphones in certain markets beyond Apple's control (due to more people buying iphones from a different country, resellers taking advantage, scalpers, etc). It can severely strip out supply from certain countries. This happens with many fashion brands (eg handbags), to the point that some of them (forgot which one) applies a more uniform pricing to all its worldwide subsidiaries to avoid the out of control export/import.
In absolute USD terms, there is not much change in price. But measured using purchasing power parity (PPP), it's hell of a change.
Understandable that Apple increases the prices due to the changing conversion rate. But I fear they are not going to revert it when the conversion rate changes again. That’s the real bummer.
At last, someone grasps why the "price adjustement that does not exist" is simply a "price increase". Thank you for that.
It’s a two way street though as if they don’t lower prices once inflation decreases, they have to adjust their expectations on sales. People won’t be buying these products in the numbers they used to if they continue to be as costly as they have got. It’ll force people to go longer between upgrades or transition to other platforms in some cases.
Maybe the increased cost and less sales will even out and Apple will be happy with that though? If they continue to increase the cost each year at a rate that it counteracts the drop off, they might just maintain those expected profits. I was laughed at back in August on here when I suggested Europes economic crisis will affect iPhone demand and was told Apple is a strong enough brand to not lose out.
Unlikely tbh. I would think that iPhone's demand is pretty price elastic.
Just ignore what this user JPack says. He will not hear even the slightest criticism about anything to do with Apple, and his opinion is biased to say the least. The prices in the UK are demonstrably more expensive, and even more so in Europe. There is a world beyond the USA
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I think the key thing that people here are at odds about is this:
This is the reality of inflation. This isn't Apple being greedy, it is the local economy taking a dump. Do you honestly expect any corporation to take a haircut on the price of a luxury item to what... take one for the team?
All of us need to blame our collective politicians for using fiat currencies to print money out of thin air for years.
- Many European posters here see an increase in the number of Euros/Pounds they spend to buy the item, and think Apple = Greedy
- In reality, the relative value / cost of the phone hasn't changed. It is the buying power of your currency that has decreased.
This is the reality of inflation. This isn't Apple being greedy, it is the local economy taking a dump. Do you honestly expect any corporation to take a haircut on the price of a luxury item to what... take one for the team?
All of us need to blame our collective politicians for using fiat currencies to print money out of thin air for years.
This chart is "Beautiful" but ultimately meaningless in the context of this conversation. I think we all know that "average" salaries vary significantly around the world. Obviously in a place like Nigeria or Bangladesh, the phone would be a huge chunk of the "average" salary because that average salary is so low. https://www.worlddata.info/average-income.php
Likewise, in Europe, my colleagues doing the exact same job as I do make significantly less on their paychecks.... thus a phone would be a larger chunk of their income. That said, they also get a ****-ton of "free" benefits that I have to pay for. None of this is reflected in this nonsensical chart.
Americans and Europeans have been spoiled by years of relatively steady inflation. You'll never hear an Argentinian complaining that Apple is greedy when the price of their phone goes up on a monthly basis. They know exactly where to place the blame for a plummeting currency valuation.
...and Apple are selling a high-value, high-margin product (for which they own much of the supply & distribution chain) which gives them some flexibility on how they set their international prices. They're certainly not reviewing prices daily - they'll be making guesses about likely long-term currency variations - and can choose to err on the generous or mean side. I doubt the current prices completely reflect the currency changes over the last few days.
As for the moaning - the fact that EU/UK prices are almost always quoted including tax, whereas US prices always exclude the (lower & AFAIK avoidable) tax creates "sticker shock" that lingers even after you reason it out.
However, in the past US companies (including Apple) really have taken the Mickey - in recent years $1 (ex Tax) = £1 (inc tax) hasn't been far off the mark with tax at 20%, the pound at ~$1.30, and add a bit of credit for shipping, localisation, warranty etc. However, that $1=£1 exchange rate has been the norm for IT products since the 80s - when the pound was higher, sales tax was lower and prices of computers etc. were generally quoted without tax. Looking at a copy of a US magazine like Byte and seeing all the prices with, pretty much, the '£' just changed to a '$' was infuriating. People were reportedly getting cheap flights to New York to buy Macs and coming out ahead (even if they were "good" and properly declared it at customs) I guess the web made that sort of pricing harder to get away with - apart from making it easy to compare prices, people would just buy stuff from Amazon US and eat the delivery charge.
NB - for US folk, it's worth noting that, in EU/UK, any business/company with a turnover (not profit) > ballpark $100k (e.g. £85k in the UK) will have to charge tax on their own products/services but can claim the tax back on most things bought for business (Terms and Conditions Apply) - and lower-turnover businesses can opt-in if it is to their advantage. So a lot of people using Macs for work or self-employment could, potentially, not be paying that tax. (The downside is that the VAT people have a reputation for making the Income Tax people seem like cute, fluffy kittens...)
More to the point, there hasn't been inflation of IT products until, maybe, fairly recently. $1500 has bought you a half-decent personal computer since the 1980s (for the time - Mac or IBM PC were even more expensive when they were the new shiny). The iMac went up a whole 10% between 1998 and 2020 (c.f. general inflation ~60%). Laptops and basic PCs have gone down in price.
That's ignoring the whole "...and they got several orders of magnitude more powerful" thing that makes talking about inflation almost meaningless - I'm just looking at "cheapest desktop system including display". To judge inflation, you have to as questions like "what's the cheapest new desktop/laptop Mac I can buy today" - since it's almost guaranteed that will have better specs than the cheapest option anything more than two years ago.
...the Mac Mini has gone up $100 between 2005 and 2020 (c.f. general inflation ~36%). The cheapest Mac laptop has gone down from $1299 (2006 white MacBook) to $999 (current M1 MacBook Air).
If you want to compare phones, there's no point comparing the iPhone 3G with the iPhone 14 Pro DoublePlus - the successor to the iPhone 3G is the SE. First price I can find on Everymac for an unlocked, off-contract iPhone was the iPhone 4 at $649 and (as far as I can tell) the SE now starts at $429.
I think what passes for "inflation" is that (a) in the case of Phones Apple have been throwing the love at new, higher priced iPhones that are more pocket video/photo studio/games consoles than smartphones, while the "basic smartphone" has just plodded along - and (b) generally people have come to expect IT prices to stay the same, if not drop in absolute terms while the specs increase exponentially - but the technology is starting to mature and so, sometimes, the spec bumps are coming at a cost.
Having said that, 2020-2022 saw the release of M1 Macs with - generally - significantly better performance at the same price point (unless you wanted a lower-end 27" iMac).
Also, if you're talking about phones, ask your European colleagues how much they're paying for their call/data plans. Last I looked, USA folk were paying through the nose...
(In the UK I'm paying £17/month for unlimited calls & data, after very minimal haggling)