iphone retails in the US for $200
here it’s sold for P30-40k

a netbook that retails $400 in the US
will be sold for P20k here

Is your stupidity assembled offshore with raw materials sourced from different countries before it eventually landed here?

Price adjustment vis-a-vis GDP is feasible only for products where raw materials are sourced locally, e.g., Coke, McDonalds, KFC, etc can be made cheaper because local suppliers do sell their products at a cheaper price.

However, Starbucks can’t do that, at least not as much. Why? Because the source of their coffee beans is the same all over the world. The only thing that they can source locally would be water, sugar and milk: all of which are only peripheral to their main product line.

Same banana with the iPhone. It all comes from China, and perhaps the only factor that can help cheapen it would be shipping costs. Do we know where an iPhone has gone before reaching the Philippines though? I’m sure it doesn’t get to here from China direct.

Software for the iPhone would also cost the same all over the world. Would you demand software developers to cheapen their products for you just because you live in the Philippines?

Besides, this is a luxury product. Stop bitching about not being able to afford it if you cant: it’s not for you. There are a billion things more important than an iPhone that you can spend on.

The problem with goods such as the iPhone is that it caters to a niche market, often characterized by price discrimination, high demand, and low supply (again, to name a few. haha). In addition to this, the iPhone 3G is a relatively new product which means that prices are not yet in equilibrium. That is, of course, without even touching upon the benefits of Apple’s dominance based on intellectual property alone.

Am I making sense? What I’m trying to say that we can, being free individuals, compute and adjust for iPhone prices worldwide but it can only provide us with a snapshot of how hard we have to work for it compared to our other gadget salivating friends abroad.

incoming and outgoing calls also have a fee of $0.30/ minute, and now network companies will be implementing extra charge for incoming text which is also $0.30/text.

if you are on a pay as you go plan (prepaid)and does not have a load, your phone is useless no incoming and outgoing calls can be made. iPhone on a prepaid plan here in vancouver will suck big time.

This comparison of where the iPhone is much cheaper is not really that accurate because it doesn’t consider differences in markets.

I would be much more interested in comparing PREPAID/PLAN-FREE iPhone prices across countries because more or less it should only be taxes affecting the price. The rest is up to the vendor’s, ahem, greed? Hehe

See, prepaid iPhones cost $600 in the U.S, or P27,000. Here it’s P37,599. Since 12% of that is for VAT, Globe is only really charging us P33K. Still, that’s already a P6000 easy profit in there, assuming Globe is paying Apple P27K for each iPhone, which I don’t think they are.

I don’t know… maybe I’m missing something.

Let’s have the WorldWide Prepaid iPhone Price Chart.