Britain gets screwed by Apple for iPhone…
I’ll give just one example of many. The price paid by the British in the technology sector is shocking…
Apple iPhone announced for sale in the UK for GBP £269 + contract costs.
Cost of Apple iPhone in the United States: $399 + contract costs.
Current Exchange Rate: £1 = $2.01, £269 = $540.79.
British customer pays an extra: £70.54/$141.79.
I’m not posting this to attack Apple, because the entire technology industry seems to do it… But it is annoying. You could easily pay for a flight from the UK to the US with the savings you’d make on buying a top-range laptop in the US rather than the UK. It’s funny really, because with the British Pound so strong against the American Dollar, it should be the opposite way around.
Time to give the British store credit, Steve?
September 21st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
VAT! I think that’s much of the difference in cost. In the US, how much is sales tax and is it included in the $399?
It’s the contract costs that put me off the iPhone (I was hoping for pay-as-you-go) so I went for the iPod Touch instead. To touch it is to want it - it was an easy sale (inc VAT)!
September 21st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Sales tax here in Chicago is over 10% - it doesn’t account for all that money.
Yeah I see what you mean about the contract costs, by the time you pay out the contract the phone has cost you 900 pounds or so, right?