# Is Apple overcharging non US customers?



## rubaiyat (Feb 17, 2011)

My 2 really big objections to the Mac App Store and now Apple's Subscriptions is the hefty markup on non-USA customers.

Even for material sourced from the user's own country/currency zone.

It is just bits & bytes from servers located anywhere. So is purely discriminatory.

If Apple makes 2nd class citizens of all non-Americans it will double the incentive for them to go to Android not iOS.

Bad move Apple.


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## Giaguara (Feb 17, 2011)

Are you talking about the iPhone? (guess based on the mention of android)
Or if some other product, please specify more. World is a big place, and there are a few more than a handful of product, and different competition worldwide.

Two things are always forgotten when comparing the prices between US- and non-US prices: 1) US and Canadian prices don't include tax. So if you order e.g. from Apple.com add an instant 11 % sales tax to the price, and 2) the warranty may differ. E.g. good sold in Europe have a manufacturer's warranty for 24 months for manufacturing defect vs the usual 12 months warranty


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 17, 2011)

Don't forget VAT (which I believe applies even to "bits and bytes") and typically hovers around 19%.

None of this is due to Apple -- this is all federal and local goverment taxes.  Apple charges the same (or very close) for a Mac Pro here as they do in Europe -- but the European government mandates that the Mac Pro _automatically_ cost 19% more in Europe because Apple is a United States company.

I feel your pain (er, no, I really don't because I'm in the USA -- but I _understand_) but you're barking up the wrong tree.  Apple has no control over taxes and VAT and the like.  It's not Apple doing this to you, it's your local government and the laws of doing business internationally.


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## rubaiyat (Feb 17, 2011)

Apple is charging way over any applicable taxes and ignores the fact that purchases over the Internet have been tax free anyway.

I'm in Australia and our dollar is now worth more than the US dollar, but Apple is charging us over 35-50% more for software, iTunes, Movies and apps.

Even if GST were applicable and it wasn't before iTunes started charging, that is only 10%.

What really sticks in the craw is when Americans are undercharged for Australian products and we are over charged. It is clearly a 2 class system and I'm tired of subsidising the Yanks.

&#8230;and oh yes it is Apple *doing* it to us.

Just did a quick double check. iWork Family pack US$99 / A$169! 

A whopping 70% more in Australia for an identical product. 

The so-called Australian Dictionary included in all iWork distros is a fraud. I could not find one Australian word that it recognises.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 17, 2011)

Purchases over the internet are NOT tax-free, at least in the United States.

Many vendors do not charge sales tax when they sell over the internet -- but that does _not_ mean that the purchase is not taxable.  If a vendor does not charge you sales tax, then you are responsible for paying the government use tax.  Most people just plain don't do this (guilty as charged), and for rather small purchases, no one will ever care or "catch" you doing this.

That still doesn't alleviate the responsibility of paying tax on the purchase, though -- the burden is simply shifted from the seller to the buyer.

I do see that Apple does charge more in Australia, with no amount of tax or other explanation.  Still, I believe other retailers do the same: Dell USA charges $419.99 for an Inspiron 560 (3.2GHz/4GB/500GB/Win7-64) while Dell Australia charges $648.99 for the same model with identical specs.

Australia also has VAT and GST, and duties are also figured into the mix.  Typical duties range from 0 to 17.5% (is this tangible items only, or digital as well?  I dunno...), and GST is a flat 10%.  Combine those together, and there's your 20% to 30% price hike.

Apple may be doing it to you, but they're not alone in doing it.  The 35% to 50% isn't _all_ their fault.  

I stand corrected on Apple's part in this.  Maybe if you darn Australians didn't live so far away it wouldn't cost us so much so ship our bits to you.


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## rubaiyat (Feb 18, 2011)

Australia does _not_ have VAT, sales tax nor duties on software, due to the laughingly called Australia-USA Free Trade Agreement. The one where the USA gets to gouge us in exchange for a 10 year delay on removing US tariffs, quotas and bans on Australian products.

Australia is closer to the source of the products, China, so there goes that excuse too. As does the cost of freight which is set extraordinarily high at the US end.

Transport costs are 2 way. The Australian Holden Commodore is being sold as a rebadged Chevrolet or Buick and you are not being charged over the top prices for those.

Don't worry the USA won't have to wear its fair share of the costs any time soon because you got our previous quisling Government to pass laws preventing grey marketing and a ridiculously long IPR protection.

I repeat there is NO tax on purchases over the Internet. I am aware of the US local taxes issue, but that has nothing to do with us.

None of the generally non-applicable items you listed adds up remotely to +70%, even if they did apply.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 18, 2011)

Here's an interesting take on why software costs more in Australia than in the US:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/11/why-do-videogames-cost-so-much/


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## rubaiyat (Feb 18, 2011)

Interesting&#8230; waffle.

I personally knew the distributers for Quark XPress. They were driven spare by the gouging Quark engaged in. They had to pay wholesale, ex despatch, higher than retail in the USA! They also had to pay for all freight, promotional material, training, advertising, support etc that in the States was paid for by Quark.

That alone was once Adobe offered Indesign at a much fairer price, Quark died almost overnight here. Then Adobe having established a monopoly, turned the tables and took up the gouging themselves. My attempts to discuss this with Adobe get quickly diverted. The only competition now is from pirated copies.

There's a fat margin to be had by anyone getting US goods at US wholesale prices and shipping them to Australia. No wonder the American distributers fight tooth and nail any attempts at allowing parallel grey marketing. 

If there is any substance to the 'higher price of doing business in Australia' the top of the list of reasons would have to be because we are having to pay too much for American products. The circular argument is we are because we always have.

Since the US market is stuffed, time that we played hardball right back. Want our money? Work for it, just like we have to.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 18, 2011)

> Want our money?



We don't want your money -- it looks like Monopoly money and is unappealing to the eye:

http://4photos.net/photosv2/images_australian_money_1276498948.jpg

Rainbow colors are SO 2000.



Hehe... I'm just ribbin' ya.

In all seriousness, I don't know why Australian stuff costs so much more.  It may be, like you said, some collusion between or by governments to artificially raise prices to the full benefit of the US company and at the detriment of the Australian consumers.  Who knows?

The fact of the matter remains: I think we can all agree that automobile fuel costs the same to ship, store, and dispense in a very localized part of the world, yes?  Then why is it that the gas station down the street here sells Super Unleaded for $3.20/gallon, while the one a half mile away sells it for $3.14/gallon?  They're both "Exxon" stores, it's the same gas, delivered on the same tanker, dispensed by the same kind of pump, and taxed by a common government body.

I'll tell you why: the residents of the neighborhood in which the $3.20 store exists make more money than the residents of the neighborhood in which the $3.14 store exists.  We get to pay more for the same gas than the residents do a half mile away (or 0.804672 kilometers for you metric system weirdos).

Maybe you Australians just make 50% more money than us Americans...


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## rubaiyat (Feb 18, 2011)

One reason given was our currency is more volatile. It is one of the most traded currencies in the world, probably because it is so _pretty_. But now that the US$ is in the pits that excuse has to be on the other foot.

Because we earn more than you? Well we don't screw our workers as much as you, but we paid more than the States even when we were paid less so that can't be it either.

Maybe because our laws and our politicians are more stupid than yours, but looking at recent history that can't be it either.

So the only logical conclusion that I and any thinking person can come up with is because our water goes down the wrong way in our toilets.

So if you could send some of those high powered Anti-Coriolis Effect De Turbulators of yours, we'll happily pay top dollar and allocate at least a gigawatt of power generation to rectifying the problem. 

Now you sure you're charging enough, and not losing anything on this deal? Here's the PIN to my bank account, mind you take all you need&#8230;


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 18, 2011)

rubaiyat said:


> So the only logical conclusion that I and any thinking person can come up with is because our water goes down the wrong way in our toilets.



Mystery solved!

I am glad we finally agree that, while Apple does apparently have something against Australians, that it's a market-wide (or even country-wide) problem that not only they are guilty of, but just about every other US company that does business in Australia.

Do you know of any US-based companies that charge the same in Australia as they do in the US?


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## rubaiyat (Feb 18, 2011)

None that I know of. I don't expect total parity, but the egregious mark up is so over the top.

One thing we really are aware of, is that most US companies are ruthless. They make a big deal of cheap flattery but you count your fingers after every handshake.

Down to the funeral company that cremated my brother. Absolute rip-off merchants, who exploit people at their most vunerable. We were forced to use them to have him buried with my mother, but if it had been up to me, I would have built my own rose garden and moved my mother as well.

My brother works for a US Scientific Instrument importer, who treats him very well, but I have never asked him what their pricing policies are and why. He probably won't tell me but I might give it a try next time I see him.

To get back on topic, Apple's Mac App Store is such a radical change. I have a huge amount of shareware, because I want to encourage anyone who offers a quality product. We have to pay a currency exchange charge on our credit cards but otherwise are paying exactly the same as any other customer, anywhere. 

Now Apple has actually built its entire price scales with a fat mark up on everything on the Aussie store, even the Australian content! How crazy that PCAuthority magazine is 35% cheaper in the US than Australia where it is published, just because Apple says it has to be.


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## fryke (Feb 19, 2011)

I'm pretty sure Apple can't be bothered with singular apps' prices. They won't go and create special rules about where a software is created: They have rules for the Mac App Store - and that's about it. You as a developer can define which price category an app is in, and that defines the price for each country.

As a user, you have the choice of either buying it at that price, or not buying it at that price. If the state of things is really outrageous, many more will NOT buy it at that price, and somewhere down the line, Apple will have to adjust things (or the developer of a specific app will have to adjust), or it won't be sold through the Mac App Store.

It's not about Australia only, either. I hear similar things from the UK and Germany, years ago the discrepancy was bigger for us here in Switzerland as well. Nowadays, I think Apple's prices in Switzerland are more or less okay, and we even have the ability to buy iPhones without contracts from Apple's (online & offline) stores.

You can look at Apple this way: They will never try to sell you a good as cheap as they possibly can. They're trying to sell it to you at the highest price you will pay. They're not interested in moving the largest quantities, they're interested in moving large quantities at good prices in a premium market.

Steve once said they would try not to create an umbrella with the iPhone, where they'd generate a market where cheaper smartphones could sell at lower prices with "more or less" the same features. I guess they "adressed" that with selling the iPhone 3G 8 GB when the 3GS was new and now selling the 3GS 8 GB while the iPhone 4 is the newest. I don't think that strategy is really working out, though, since there already are a plethora of inexpensive android phones (albeit mostly unupgradeable android 1.6/2.1 phones). If Apple won't truly create a less expensive iPhone for a lower cost clientele, I foresee seeing the same thing happening with iPhone that did happen with the Mac and Windows back in the day. Yes, Windows was never truly a _comfortable_ alternative, but it was always the cheaper option, if you wanted to go really low-cost entry level. (I'm not talking the worth of things, merely the price-tag at the point of sale.)


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## rubaiyat (Feb 19, 2011)

That misses the problem of discriminatory pricing.

Apple refuses to sell the identical product from their US store if you do not live in the USA.

We unfortunately have a generation now that offers no resistance to price. Many are probably totally unaware of how much they are charged or even what that price _should_ be. They are taxed on their laziness and stupidity, but it makes it hard for those who sensibly resist, to have any impact.

Ultimately that means the only real pressure will come from the price sensitive Android purchasers, because iPhone/iPad/Mac customers will be trapped in Apple's ecosystem.

Yes I know you still have a 'choice' to purchase some material outside Apple's stores, but you would be a fool to not foresee the Mall-isation of digital retailing where the customer, sheep-like, just follows the path of least resistance.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 20, 2011)

> We unfortunately have a generation now that offers no resistance to price. Many are probably totally unaware of how much they are charged or even what that price should be. They are taxed on their laziness and stupidity, but it makes it hard for those who sensibly resist, to have any impact.



If this were true, wouldn't Apple try and charge US customers more as well?

It could be argued that the US contains the most spoiled, know-nothing, lazy, stupid, Jersey-shore, Paris Hilton, self-centered, self-absorbed, oblivious people in the world... if your argument was truly the reason Apple gets away with discriminatory pricing, wouldn't it stand to reason that the US have the highest prices for Apple gear, then?

Or is it just Apple being "pro-American," and saying, "screw the rest of the world -- we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor for cheaper over here because of this reason: _____________."

I just don't get what gets filled into that blank there.


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## rubaiyat (Feb 20, 2011)

Heaven forbid that any American institution would be nationally narcissistic, and self absorbed.

&#8230; and that our know-nothing, lazy, stupid, self-centered, self-absorbed, oblivious Conservative Government did what it always does and bent over and said go for it. So Apple and every American corporation does just that with even greater protection under Australian law than it does USA law.


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## rubaiyat (Feb 20, 2011)

Things are afoot:

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...gouge-aussie-itunes-users-20110221-1b1nq.html

I'll be throwing my shoes soon at Steve Jobs on screen.

If you think I wouldn't, this iMac which is a replacement for my original iMac is now itself undergoing repairs. It has screen burn-ins, freezes and kernel panics as well as screen artifacts and HD problems.

Both my son' iMacs have had hardware problems and my iMac G5 had a major breakdown just after warranty ran out.

Apple's Macs are starting to show the lack of attention and the money making going on in other divisions.


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## Jshaw (Jul 6, 2011)

This wont happen when you stop paying. If they are charging you more simply dont buy their apps and see how the price comes down then. This will also stop Apples executives giving lame excuses like this one These factors vary from region to region and over time, such that international prices are not always comparable to US suggested retail prices. When we  know that this is nothing more than a lie but we'll still do it.
Source: http://radiomobiletech.com/blogposts/apple-charging-australian-users-more-for-apps.html


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## g/re/p (Jul 13, 2011)

I like pie.


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## Viro (Feb 3, 2012)

This is not only limited to Apple. Many other companies do the same thing and it's hard to not to feel ripped off. It's not just computer companies, but everyone else. Canon and Nikon come to mind...


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## bbloke (Feb 10, 2012)

I know I'm digressing, but I wanted to say it is good to see you around again, Viro.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 10, 2012)

> "Each iTunes store is relevant to the country within which it resides, *i.e. content availability and pricing is based on agreements with the relevant content owners in each country*," the Apple spokeswoman said.
> 
> Zinn acknowledged that sometimes there were different licensing agreements for different countries but said he believed the disparity in pricing was "much more to do with market power". Apple earns a 30 per cent cut from sales on its iTunes store.



Even when presented with evidence that the record labels, not Apple, are behind the disparity in pricing, this Zinn fellow refused to see what's plainly in front of him and still is being bull-headed and stubborn about placing the blame squarely with Apple.

While I'm not excusing Apple from any wrongdoing, saying that this is simply a money-grab by Apple screwing an entire country with inflated prices is going off the deep end.

Hell, even book prices are inflated -- a book that costs $25 in the USA is near $40 in Australia.  Damn near all USA-based goods are more expensive in Australia.  It's a problem with differing countries, not with Apple specifically, and I highly suspect that the pricing model in Australia is more politically- and economically-motivated by the content-holders (as stated in the article linked) rather than Apple solely.


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