Monday, March 17, 2008

Apple price politics

Apple no longer charges on a world wide price. Europeans are by far more charged for the same items as Americans.

Today I compared prices of the iPod touch. And they are wooping 51% to 76% more expensive
in Switzerland compared to the US price. Of course you should remove the 7.6% swiss VAT from this and what it would cost to ship it. But at 60% higher prices, it's a public offense to the loyal swiss market.

Hopefully people will react accordingly.


PS: part of the price increase might be caused by the swiss agency of author rights (Suisa) which pushed through a cost on a MP3 player. Its legal to download MP3's. So its legal to have them on your iPod but you are punished by a increased buying price. Its even that odd that its per Megabyte and its different if its flash or HD. A odd story by itself. But I leave it to the judges to use common sense to fix this one day.

When comparing to UK or germany prices, they where stilll 10-25% higher than in USA for the iPod touch. So its not THAT bad but still bad.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If thats any kind of solace to you, there are countries here in Europe, where either the prices are higher and it is still impossible to legally buy iPhone.

I really don't understand this.