Infographic: the grotesque mark-ups of Apple products around the world

John Brownlee ()

Infographic: the grotesque mark-ups of Apple products around the worldFor Apple fans abroad, the price discrepancy between between the cost of an Apple computer locally and what it would cost in the States is often enough to justify a flight to the States. In first class. On a chartered Gulfstream jet. Loaded as cargo in the belly of an Anatov An-225.

Fine. I’ll cop to the slightest of exaggerations. But as an American living abroad, paid in dollars but doing business in Euros, the 40% premium on the cost of a new MacBook Pro or iMac is enough, sometimes, to make me want to weep. Apple’s not alone in this: across the board, gadget makers releasing their products in the EU set a MSRP assuming a dollar-to-euro exchange rate of 1 to 1…. even when, in reality, the actual exchange rate is 1 to 1.45. There’s optimistic ways to look at it, of course — commit to buying that new MacBook Pro I have my heart set on for its euro price but in the States, and I get a trip home “for free.” But this is meager comfort: in reality, it often feels like the low prices of gadgets in America and Japan are subsidized by the exorbitant markups people pay for their technology in the rest of the world.

Don’t believe me? Check out this helpful infographic over at CMYPlay, which colorfully and informatively breaks down the price discrepancies between the same model of MacBook Pro over a handful of countries. At the end of the day, the average Brazilian spends enough in local currency for one MacBook Pro that he could pick up two of the same model if he bought it in the States. It’s almost enough to make a native Brazilian woe the day he was born in that bright, sunny paradise of plump, bethonged bikini bottoms.

Click through for the full infographic.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in MacBook Pro, News |

  • Don Pope

    *Antonov

  • http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell

    Hmm. While mark-up annoys me, some of those figures look a little off, and don’t all take into account local taxes.

    For example, an entry-level 13″ MBP on the US store = $1199. On the UK store, it’s £918. Remove VAT (value added tax, always shown on consumer stores in the UK, but added at the till in the US) and you get £781.28. Since Sterling got a kicking, it’s been hovering around $1.60, making the equivalent UK price $1250. That’s still a mark-up, but 50 bucks on something costing way over a grand isn’t too bad.

    (Elsewhere, Apple’s sometimes better and often worse, but mark-up is extremely variable by country, and Brits no longer get it too bad from Apple.)

  • Jim Stuckey

    Typical Apple cult whining. So you expect Apple managment to subsidize your career choice?

    A couple of suggestions:
    1) Get paid in Euros. Then you could really afford to fly home and buy your favorite Apple toys. Fly home wiht a pocket full of Euros, exchange the currency, etc.
    2) Suck it up and buy something that is manufactured in Europe

  • RattyUK

    This wonderful “let’s hit Apple over the head” infographic. Is mostly just BS based on the local taxes added to the base price. In Brazil it is insanely high for example. This is on all electronic products not just the Apple ones.

  • http://www.acceleration.biz David

    http://www.stopcore.co.za yip I paid R34 000 $4533 @ 7.50 per dollar for my MBP thanks Core South Africa.
    They also list any cheaper importers as grey importers.

    The second most expensive online mac store in the world http://www.zastore.co.za

  • http://islandinthenet.com/about-island-in-the-net/ Khurt Williams

    The 13″ MacBook Pro would cost me US $1282.93 in New Jersey when taxes are included. The same MacBook Pro in the UK would cost UK£918.00 (approx US $1484.49 at current market rates) which includes UK VAT. I’m not sure what UK VAT is but it would seem that the US prices are not much higher.

    Specs for comparison:
    2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
    2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x1GB
    160GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
    SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
    Backlit Keyboard (English)

  • http://blog.cmyplay.com thedebaser

    Could you please refrain from altering my work. It is copyrighted material and if you needed a full size image you could have asked.

    This is not Apple bashing. I was merely making an observation. I own a number of Macs bought at the South African retail price.

  • Chris

    That is a horrible infographic. The highest cost is 1.727 times larger than the lowest cost, but its bar is seven or eight times larger. Shouldn’t an infographic accurately present the information, or is that not the point?

  • imajoebob

    Wow. Strange, antagonistic vibes on every level here, from economic to geopolitical to intellectual rights to graphic design to (of course) Fanbois v. Windozing. Whew!

    My take is that this is a simple (effective) illustration of the “cost of entry” to Mac computing in different markets. It’s not trying to explain the detail, just the bottom line. It does it very well. If you want to understand the whys and wherefores, start with @Craig Granell. Then look into local tariffs, import rules, franchise rules, business protection schemes, etc. You’ll find a lot of “reasonable” explanations why the costs vary so much.

    For example, Apple hasn’t opened a stand-alone store in Brazil. It operates 10 “Best Buy” models in the FNAC chain, and just opened online in October. Many South American countries have strong laws to protect the small shops that were established as authorized Apple sellers years ago. Since these were the people who did the heavy lifting to establish and maintain the brand for many years, they’re protected from Apple just waltzing into a now ripe market and undercutting their cost/price structure. The US concentrates the economic power in brutally efficient companies; others choose to distribute the economic benefit differently. Even capitalist countries stack the economic deck one way or another, and none has yet to be proved the ultimate best.

    Chances are if you could actually break the costs down into every single component, especially hidden costs, they’ll eventually all cost about the same.

  • Charel

    I can understand why Apple pricing differs in different markets due to import duties, consumer taxes and the cost of doing business.
    At the same time it would be unreasonable to expect Apple to follow exchange rate variations all the time.
    Don’t forget that at one time the US $ was strong where now it is weak. Apple does not know and neither do we what it will be worth to-morrow.

  • Courtney

    Great infographic on all of Apple’s products, see another cool one, specifically about the iPod here http://www.digitalsurgeons.com/ipod-timeline-infographic/