Recently, Apple had launched three new iPhones, The iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone XR along with a new Apple Watch Series 4.
Now, iPhone Xs is iPhone X with few upgrades, and the iPhone Xs Max is bigger with 6.5 inches display. The iPhone XS Max is the biggest Smartphone Apple has ever made. The iPhone XR is a budget iPhone, or you can call it a “Sasta” iPhone. By the way, the starting price of Xr is 76,900 rupees so that you can purchase a Samsung flagship Note 9 or a Google Pixel 2 XL with this amount of money.
Apple is a premium brand, so undoubtedly, the price of these smartphones will be much higher. Yes, and it is. With new generations of the iPhones Apple continues to increase the price. New iPhones come with A12 Bionic chip, the best processor ever in a smartphone, improved cameras, a gorgeous super retina OLED display and a lot more great features. But the biggest problem is the price, especially in India.
The starting price of the iPhone Xs in the USA is US$ 999 and goes up to US$ 1349 whereas the cost of the iPhone Xs Max starts from US$ 1099 to US$ 1449.
If we convert the USD to INR, then the price of iPhone Xs should start from 73,756 Rupees, but it isn’t. It starts at 99,900 rupees. Almost 26,000 higher than the USA price.
Now let’s talk about the higher-end variant of the iPhone Xs Max ( 512 GB ). If we convert US dollars into Indian rupees, then the price should be around 107,034 rupees. But the real cost is 1,44,900 rupees—37,000 rupees more than US price.
Apple uses simple mathematics for Indian pricing. Just multiply the US pricing by 100. The answer will be the Indian pricing.
Now let’s talk about this price difference. Why are Apple products expensive in India than in other countries?
1. Not having manufacturing plants in India
Apple sells its products with a massive network of retail stores in India rather than their official stores, and this is because of India’s Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) policy that says that any brand has to source 30 per cent of its components locally if it wants to open manufacturing units in the country. Apple collects its components from different suppliers that are produced in 28 countries. Due to this very reason, many multinational brands such as H&M also sell their products at high prices in India.
2. Custom Duty
We know that for every product, India imports a fixed amount of customs duty is imposed on products. On average, the total amount of duties on Apple products paid to the government is 11.43% which includes shipping and handling charges also.
Not just Apple, we had seen a few months ago Xiaomi had increased the price of the Redmi Note 5 Pro and the Mi TV 4 just because of import taxes.
3. Taxes
iPhone accessories such as earphones, chargers come under different categories, and Value Added Tax (VAT) is applied to these items, which is around 12.5%.
After the central government tax, every brand has to pay different taxes in different states of India, and this is probably the reason why the prices of iPhones are different in different regions of India.
These are the reasons for the 1.5 lac rupees iPhone. But still, Apple can decrease the price by making some deal with the government or by making iPhones in India. There is some charging issue with new iPhones called #ChargeGate. Hopefully, it will be fixed in upcoming iOS 12 updates. One thing to notice here is, Apple does not provide a quick charger adapter in 1 lac rupees Smartphone! Few android brands provide better charging adapter at just price of 10,000 rupees. Even Apple doesn’t offer a dongle for the 3.5 mm headphone jack! You have to spend extra money to purchase that!
If you are looking for the best budget smartphone, read this article Best Smartphones Under 20,000 Rupees.
