Apple online store now live in India with greedy and out of touch prices

[AlTech]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

that sounds at best oversimplified.  “Taxes” is a catch all term.

Okay, to be specific EU prices include VAT or Value Added Tax. Usually at 21% although this may be lower or higher depending on the individual member state.

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Okay, to be specific EU prices include VAT or Value Added Tax. Usually at 21% although this may be lower or higher depending on the individual member state.

My understanding is VAT is pretty analogous to sales tax.  In the US sales tax varies wildly from 0% to almost 18% though the high number is generally only for resteraunts  near stadiums, so tiny parts of the largest cities for specific products.  Online goods shipped interstate often have no sales tax

[tim0901]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:Ohh that's right, I always forget they do that in the US. Still, I'm comparing it to prices that also include taxes (RAM prices on Amazon) so the point stands.

As someone in Europe: yea, our prices are bad on pretty much everything compared to the US. Be that food, electronics, clothing, whatever. It’s called a higher cost of living. 
 

If you want to be really outraged, go look at the price of everyday items in Switzerland. Your regular weekly food shop there would cost you twice as much as in London. Hell, it’s cheaper to live in New York (excluding rent) than to live in Zurich. 
 

That being said, yes Apple charges massively more than they should for RAM in literally every market they exist in. Nobody says otherwise. They aren’t some kind, benevolent entity  like half the world seems to think they are. They’re a company.

 

And what’s the point of a company?

 

To. Make. Profit. 
 

They don’t care that their prices are too high for most people in India to afford. They could sell iPhones at a price that would be more accessible there, but that wouldn’t make them as much money in the long run. 

By selling iPhones cheaper in some regions, they decrease the value of their brand - Apple very much pitches themselves as a luxury electronics manufacturer, which wouldn’t work if they were selling them at a fraction of the price across the world. By selling at a lower price, the ‘luxury’ iPhone becomes a commodity. And while sure they may make a buttload of money in the short term, the damage to their brand identity would outweigh that cost. Having become a commodity, increasing their prices back to where they used to be would be much harder. And this is assuming the board of directors didn’t immediately kick out Tim Apple for trying to do it in the first place.

 

Why do you think the iPhone SE uses the old iPhone design language? Because they envision the high end iPhones as a luxury. A status symbol. And if you want that status symbol then you have to pay for it. You can’t afford the Apple tax? Well then, as far as they’re concerned, you’re simply not worthy of owning it. And it just so happens that, as far as Apple is concerned, in India there are less people that are worthy of owning Apple products.

You don’t become a trillion dollar company by being nice. 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

If you want to be really outraged, go look at the price of everyday items in Switzerland. Your regular weekly food shop there would cost you twice as much as in London. Hell, it’s cheaper to live in New York (excluding rent) than to live in Zurich. 

Switzerland is kind of a special case; prices are really high but so are wages pretty much across the board.

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

That being said, yes Apple charges massively more than they should for RAM in literally every market they exist in. Nobody says otherwise. They aren’t some kind, benevolent entity  like half the world seems to think they are. They’re a company.

 

And what’s the point of a company?

 

To. Make. Profit. 
 

They don’t care that their prices are too high for most people in India to afford. They could sell iPhones at a price that would be more accessible there, but that wouldn’t make them as much money in the long run. 

Indeed, which is why I don't recommend buying from them. Too bad that every time I make a comment to that effect there's an onslaught of people trying to justify the price and claiming it's perfectly reasonable.

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

By selling iPhones cheaper in some regions, they decrease the value of their brand - Apple very much pitches themselves as a luxury electronics manufacturer, which wouldn’t work if they were selling them at a fraction of the price across the world. By selling at a lower price, the ‘luxury’ iPhone becomes a commodity. And while sure they may make a buttload of money in the short term, the damage to their brand identity would outweigh that cost. Having become a commodity, increasing their prices back to where they used to be would be much harder. And this is assuming the board of directors didn’t immediately kick out Tim Apple for trying to do it in the first place.

Tim and friends are exclusively concerned with making money, I have no doubt this is a profitable strategy for them or at least they believe it to be. I'm not giving them advice over what to sell at what price, I'm just telling everyone else that none of it is worth their money.

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

Why do you think the iPhone SE uses the old iPhone design language?

Because they know that their design gets less user friendly every year and people have no incentive to change what they have. They know they can get some people who are content with their current model to upgrade by offering something they're already familiar with.

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

Because they envision the high end iPhones as a luxury.

I mean... I've heard this argument dozens of times and it used to be about why Apple doesn't make lower end devices. It's not an especially convincing point. The reality of it is that they'll just offer whatever they think they can sell with the highest profit margin they think they can get away with. After that it's all just marketing; if you sell something expensive it has to be presented as a luxury, otherwise people won't fall for it.

1 hour ago, tim0901 said:

You don’t become a trillion dollar company by being nice. 

Then perhaps we should do something to prevent companies from becoming trillion dollar corporations... too bad antitrust only seems to care when large enough competitors complain.

[pilot35]

Apple has always been known to sell overpriced, inferior, soldered junk. Nothing surprising here. 

 

I don't know why would they even bother to open an Indian Apple store, their market share in India is already pathetic. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

On 9/24/2020 at 1:39 AM, Sauron said:

"other products are also overpriced" is not an argument against Apple's products being overpriced. 

Why not? It just shows that people on this forum love to witch-hunt Apple over shenanigans the entire industry is guilty of. 

[Blademaster91]

4 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Why not? It just shows that people on this forum love to witch-hunt Apple over shenanigans the entire industry is guilty of. 

Except Apple gets defended for a lot of the dumb things they do, not the case with the rest of the tech industry.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

8 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Except Apple gets defend for a lot of the dumb things they do, not the case with the rest of the tech industry.

Laughs in Tesla. Yea I'm including Tesla because they are a technology and software company at their core. 

[RedRound2]

On 9/24/2020 at 6:49 PM, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

doesn't change the fact it is greedy and out of touch, i don't get what you are trying to say here? 

What are you complaining about? Its the governent that charges extra price over the devices and componant compared to the US pricing. Literally everything in India when it comes to middle to high end tech is absurdly expensive. It is not exclusive to Apple at all - and rather you should direct all your frustrations at the government for having some weird protectionist policies that doesn't really protect anyone and just ends up miniting more money out of the end user in the form of taxes

[RedRound2]

2 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Except Apple gets defended for a lot of the dumb things they do, not the case with the rest of the tech industry.

Nope, there's usually an internet cult group who loves to open every Apple article and bash them for anything they do, whether it's good or bad (seriously take a look at an article where Apple donates money to some charity or natural disaster - and you can find the cultists going around spinning it in a way to warrant a negative reaction).

 

Other companies, not so much - and there's nothing special about Apple to deserve extra hate. If you can't deal with the fact that many, many people love their products and have a better experiance with their products, then you have other issues to deal with

 

And here, there would never be an article about HP, or Dell, Nvidia's new GPUs or the Xbox Series ridiculous pricing in India. But here we are, becasue Apple. And it even has nothing to do with Apple, as it is the government that charges the ridiculous taxes, but the OP for some reason think it's Apple's fault - and refuses to change the title that conforms his narrative

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

What are you complaining about? Its the governent that charges extra price over the devices and componant compared to the US pricing. Literally everything in India when it comes to middle to high end tech is absurdly expensive. It is not exclusive to Apple at all - and rather you should direct all your frustrations at the government for having some weird protectionist policies that doesn't really protect anyone and just ends up miniting more money out of the end user in the form of taxes

I wouldn’t say it doesn’t protect anyone at all.  It doesn’t protect very many though. High import tariffs like that are referred to as “protectionist” theyre intended to force companies to build factories in the protectionist country.  They mostly don’t work though.  One thing they do is create huge smuggling problems. 

 

It’s a practice that was largely abandoned 30 years ago.

[RedRound2]

13 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I wouldn’t say it doesn’t protect anyone at all.  It doesn’t protect very many though. High import tariffs like that are referred to as “protectionist” theyre intended to force companies to build factories in the protectionist country.  They mostly don’t work though.  One thing they do is create huge smuggling problems. 

 

It’s a practice that was largely abandoned 30 years ago.

I get where you are coming from. But here's the reality in India. There is no local smartphone company and you can't force international companies to make factories, especially in a place that isn't as advanced in manufacturing like China, when there is little demand. The demand must come first - then you'll get factories. I feel like there is a much better way to ensure this outcome by placing induvidual deals with companies than just charging high import tariffs that stifles the demand

[RejZoR]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I wouldn’t say it doesn’t protect anyone at all.  It doesn’t protect very many though. High import tariffs like that are referred to as “protectionist” theyre intended to force companies to build factories in the protectionist country.  They mostly don’t work though.  One thing they do is create huge smuggling problems. 

 

It’s a practice that was largely abandoned 30 years ago.

Well, India is 30 years behind the rest of the world in a lot of things still... It's always strange how such large countries with massive population often have such bizarre divides. On one end you have relatively modern cities with hundreds of millions of people and outside of that it's like something you'd picture from 50 or even 100 years ago in Europe. It's similar in China. Super modern high tech mega cities and outside of that you have farmlands and villages that barely know what electricity even is.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

I get where you are coming from. But here's the reality in India. There is no local mobile manufactuing comeptition and you can't force companies to make factories, especially in a place that isn't as advanced in manufacturing like China, when there is little demand. The demand must come first - then you'll get factories. I feel like there is a much better way to ensure this outcome by placing induvidual deals with companies than just charging high import tariffs that stifles the demand

Like I said, abandoned by most of the world 30 years ago.  The impression I get is that protectionist policies seem to think that smuggling will be controlled by increased international connectivity, and that this throws the tarring balance math off in their favor.  The problem is that such connectivity has been increasing for 100 years and it’s what made protectionist tariff systems untenable in the first place.  It might grow a few businesses, but it’s also going to grow organized crime.  The attitude was that the organized crime problem is a bigger negative than the protected businesses is a positive. 

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Luxury item, luxury prices...

 

What is the issue here?

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

54 minutes ago, Kinda Bottleneck said:

Luxury item, luxury prices...

 

What is the issue here?

Nothing. Already shown that a Porsche in India costs more than double than what it costs in Canada. It's just the absurd taxation of the Indian Government but people here will get on their high horse to bash Apple at any time. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

5 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

What are you complaining about? Its the governent that charges extra price over the devices and componant compared to the US pricing. Literally everything in India when it comes to middle to high end tech is absurdly expensive. It is not exclusive to Apple at all - and rather you should direct all your frustrations at the government for having some weird protectionist policies that doesn't really protect anyone and just ends up miniting more money out of the end user in the form of taxes

I am merely posting a news article, i'm sorry facts hurt your feelings. 

[AlwaysFSX]

On 9/24/2020 at 12:27 AM, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

 and it is out of touch with its Indian customers. 

Apple's job isn't to cater to your economic situation in India with special pricing.

[Blademaster91]

7 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Laughs in Tesla. Yea I'm including Tesla because they are a technology and software company at their core. 

Well Tesla is an interesting comparison, because Tesla has so many biased fans that will defend everything they do as well, such as bad quality paint,scratches from the factory, uneven panel fitment,Telsa being anti-right to repair forcing you to find a dealer or certified repair shop, or charging $2,000 for a software upgrade to make the vehicle slightly faster.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

22 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Apple's job isn't to cater to your economic situation in India with special pricing.

should have led with "its out of touch with its customers" instead, but that's besides the point.

[RejZoR]

41 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

I am merely posting a news article, i'm sorry facts hurt your feelings. 

Apple online store now live in India with greedy and out of touch prices.

 

Press X for doubt. You're exclusively bashing Apple yet everything tech in India has absurd pricing, be it monitors, graphic cards, smart watches, smartphones etc. So, why such sensationalist titling if you're "merely reporting a news"? It's not a news that tech stuff is overpriced because of Indian government and exclusively pointing at Apple only makes it very hypocritical. Especially calling them out of touch and greedy when it's not even their fault that India slams some absurd taxes on their products. Are they just suppose to eat the difference just to get same prices on the customers side? Nope. Not gonna happen.

[Guest willies leg]

I'd say it's a glitch just like most of the glitches in there?

[Justaphysicsnerd]

Fun fact in india it actually costs you 60 percent more money to build a similarly specced pc to one in USA and Canada

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

Well Tesla is an interesting comparison, because Tesla has so many biased fans that will defend everything they do as well, such as bad quality paint,scratches from the factory, uneven panel fitment,Telsa being anti-right to repair forcing you to find a dealer or certified repair shop, or charging $2,000 for a software upgrade to make the vehicle slightly faster.

Just as they have haters.  There are generally both for every devisive product.  Apple has both fans and haters, tesla has both fans and haters. One will find only advantages, the other will find only fault. 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Just as they have haters.  There are generally both for every devisive product.  Apple has both fans and haters, tesla has both fans and haters. One will find only advantages, the other will find only fault. 

The more popular a company, or a person is, the more haters they have, for seemingly strange and arbitrary reasons. Even on this forum.

 

If you look at the big picture, Apple does not need to subsidize their devices. They make high margin luxury devices, not low-margin rubbish like Samsung that can't even run software the high end devices can.