“If you want to buy Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone X in the U.S., you’ll have to shell out $999 for it,” Danielle Wiener-Bronner reports for CNN. “If you live elsewhere, you’ll have to pay even more.”
MacDailyNews Take: The word “even” denotes that the reporter, herself, thinks the price is high and is therefore coloring her journalism with personal opinion. In other words: Bad reporting. Well, after all, it’s hardly surprising: “This is CNN.”
Properly reported, the opening text should read: “If you want to buy Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone X in the U.S., it will cost you from $999. If you live elsewhere, the price might be higher.”
“Apple charges different prices for its devices from country to country, depending in part on taxes and how each local currency compares with the U.S. dollar,” Wiener-Bronner reports. “In some countries, like Canada and Japan, the iPhone X costs about $100 more than it does in the U.S. In other nations, like Italy and Ireland, the phone is over $400 more expensive than it is in the States. Apple analyst Gene Munster of Loup Ventures said that iPhones tend to cost between $50 and $300 more internationally.”
Wiener-Bronner reports, “Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research, pointed out that it’s hard to compare prices across countries not only because they include currency conversions and local taxes, but because the device’s true cost also depends on the average resident’s income.”
Full list of how much iPhone X will cost in 15 major countries (in U.S. dollars) in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, just state the price and let your readers decide for themselves if it’s expensive for them or not.
When people include the VAT in the price, the comparison with the U.S. retail price is unfair. First, we typically pay a sales tax ranging from 4% to 8.5% or higher, depending on state and locality. Second, the VAT covers a variety of other taxes and fees collected in the U.S.
VAT is a consumption tax that rewards exporters, as it not assessed to products sold to customers outside of the country of “sale”.
Example (numbers are estimates):
A US item sold in Germany will include a US$ to € FOREIGN EXCHANGE adjustment ($999 to €840) then topped with a VAT tax (15%) making the total consumer cost €966 (USD $1,148).
A US item sold in Great Britain will include a US$ to GB£ FOREIGN EXCHANGE adjustment ($999 to £756) then topped with a VAT tax (15%) making the total consumer cost £869 (USD $1,148).
Foreign Exchange rates (as do taxation policies) around the world vary, sometimes greatly.
In any case the actual price paid is about the same everywhere when taxes are deducted and foreign exchange rates are reversed.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner has demonstrated, extremely well, that today’s journalists are either stupid, lazy or both, and expect their readers to not know any better.
“Properly reported, the opening text should read: “If you want to buy Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone X in the U.S., it will cost you from $999. If you live elsewhere, THAT PRICE WILL BE ADJUSTED FOR FOREIGN EXCHANGE NORMALIZATION AND INCLUSION OF VAT TAX.”
There, now it reads correctly.
That’s a very good point. I heard from a friend that it’s illegal to include tax on marked prices in the US and Canada, which is the complete opposite to how it’s done here in Australia. Here it’s a bit tricky to actually get the true ex-tax price of an item until you get the receipt.
Lazy journalists are always making this basic error when comparing prices around the world.
In the US, prices are advertised without tax, but when you buy it, sales tax is then added to that price. In the UK, if something is intended to be sold to the general public, then the advertised price must include VAT ( sales tax ), so the customer pays the exact price shown. It’s the same in most of Europe too.
To meaningfully compare prices, you either need to add sales tax in those countries where it’s added afterwards, or deduct it for those countries where the sales tax is part of the advertised price.
I’ve long believed that the reason why credit cards took off so rapidly in the US was to do with sales tax. Most people would struggle to add up their shopping and then add 8% ( or whatever the local rate is ) and then have the right money ready in cash at the till. It’s much easier to just charge the card with whatever amount is asked.
In Europe, if you turn up at the till with €52.15 worth of goods, you know that you’ll be charged precisely €52.15, so it’s straightforward to have the right money ready instead of offering notes for €60 and pocketing a handful of change.
Ironically, European retailers and consumers now have wider access than Americans to modern payment methods and digital payments such as Apple Pay or contactless cards are nearly universal these days. I’ve recently paid small traders using Apple Pay, including a chimney sweep and a farmer’s market stall. Most shops, restaurants and businesses accept it as a perfectly normal way to pay.
“MacDailyNews Take: Again, just state the price and let your readers decide for themselves if it’s expensive for them or not.”
WHAT! And not try and tell us what to think?!?!?!?
You guys are getting more radial every day.
When i upgrade my next Iphone or Mac, i will do the shopping in France where the VAT is 10% as opposed to 20% VAT in my local UK
France, like most countries has multiple rates of VAT depending on what you’re buying. An iPhone in France would attract the 20% rate. The French 10% rate applies to things like certain food items, pharmaceuticals, restaurants and hotels.
The lowest VAT rate in Europe for an iPhone would be in Luxembourg, where the rate is 17%. Most of Europe is around 19-22% VAT, Scandinavian countries are around 25% while Hungary is the highest at 27%.