“Apple Inc.’s representative in Israel, iDigital Ltd., wants to boost its share of the laptop and desktop computer market by cutting prices by over 10% for Apple computers, which are considered very expensive,” Tzahi Hoffman reports for Globes.
“One of iDigital’s major problems is that Apple products are much cheaper in the US, and Israeli consumers have preferred buying them overseas,” Hoffman reports. “The price cut narrows the gap, making purchases in Israel a bit more worthwhile.”
Full article here.
Just wondering how many Mac Mossad will order?
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I wish hey would do that in Saudi arabia
They*
“Apple products are much cheaper in the US, and Israeli consumers have preferred buying them overseas,”
And Brazilian consumers, and British consumers, and Mexican consumers, and……. Well, we seem to get the idea.
I assume Apple products are a bit more expensive in other countries (other than US) due to the currency exchange rate, tax, import regulation…etc
iDigital’s 10% drop narrows the gap, but it’s still wide. This is from the Globes article announcing the formal release of the iPad recently:
“The price for a WiFi enabled 16-gigabit iPad is NIS 2,250, compared with NIS 2,406 in the UK and NIS 1,800 in the US. The 16-gigabit iPad with a cellular modem will cost NIS 2,850, compared with NIS 2,970 in the UK and NIS 2,270 in the US.”
The gap is even wider for Macs. A year or so back they were selling basic Macbooks for almost $2,000, and VAT only accounts for part of that. The cost differential is but one reason Macs have such a small presence there. Another is that Microsoft is very big in Israel, with thousands working at various development sites for Redmond, and many have made their businesses within the Windows ecosystem. Apple has nothing there – not even a single Apple Store – only iDigital as their representative.
@iCupertino
One thing compounding the issue is how much tax one has to pay.
In my country, the VAT rate for computers is 21%, and in Europe the quoted price needs to include VAT (except when explicityly stated in a business to business context).
However in many states of the US, state and local taxes have risen to 10-12%. These taxes are never mentioned in price lists.
This may give a false impression as to the markup of Apple products in non-US markets.
It is true that Apple takes an extra margin of 5-10% (used to be more) to protect itself from fluctuations in exchange rates.
What IS frustrating is that there don’t seem to be similar markups for non-Mac PCs.
What is absolutely untrue is that Apple products by themselves need to be more expensive in non-US countries because of transportation costs. Indeed, most Apple products are shipped straight from the factory to the local markets.
Remember that story where the iPad was confiscated by customs? Wasn’t the back story that the Apple distributor was owned by the son of one of Israel’s former Presidents? The idea being that they wanted to stifle the grey market in Apple products, where consumers went abroad to get their Apple gear?
@ vanfruniken
Here are what the USA states charge in sales tax. No state appears to be at “10-12%.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States
@ vanfruniken
I should have said “yet” to the higher sales tax.
More expensive in Israel? Not just Israel! Russia, New Zealand and Brasil, just for starters, demand outrageous and unjustifiable premium prices.
Isn’t everything more expensive in Israel?