Maxing out (no pun intended) at $1,399 for the 512GB iPhone 12 Pro Max, Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone isn’t cheap. But if you live in the United States, you can consider yourself lucky.
That’s because a list assembled by the website TechnoBlog highlights the places in the world where the iPhone 12 is most eye-wateringly (iWateringly?) expensive. The U.S. price looks like a bargain by comparison.
The priciest location in dollar terms is Brazil, where an iPhone 12 Pro Max tips the scale at a whopping $2,535. That’s not far off double the cost in the States. (9to5Mac, which also shared the list, makes the good point that the iPhone 12 hasn’t yet launched in Argentina, where it is usually even more expensive than Brazil.) India, meanwhile, is currently in second place at $2,159, followed by Italy at 1,946, Portugal ($1,934), Spain and France ($ 1,911) and so on.
You can check out the whole list here. It also includes iPhone 12 mini pricing, where — again — Brazil is the priciest location.
Ultimately, the cost in dollars isn’t necessarily the only thing that should be taken into account. Pricing is relative to the average salary in a particular place, showing how available it is to the average citizen. For example, in Brazil, the average salary is reportedly around $19.5k. Meanwhile, in India it’s significantly lower — a typical salary being around $12k. In the U.S., the average salary is reportedly $48,672.
Don’t think that the price discrepancy is down to Apple being greedy, either. The price of devices depends on exchange rates, import taxes, regional taxes and even things like private copying levies.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
