As of today, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are available for purchase in India ahead of the country’s gift-giving season. As CNBC reported, the new handsets cost more than the average Indian citizen earns in six months due to local import taxes which jack up retail price of the entry-level $649 32GB iPhone 7 to as high as $900, or a whopping $1.382 for the flagship 256GB iPhone 7 Plus model.
“The biggest challenge for Apple today is that the tariffs that India imposes on imported phones greatly increases the pricing of iPhones in India,” Gartner’s research vice president Mark Hung told CNBC’s “Street Signs” today.
Indian e-commerce site Flipkart has these iPhone 7 prices:
- 32GB iPhone 7—60,000 rupees ($898)
- 256GB iPhone 7—80,000 rupees ($1,202)
- 256GB iPhone 7 Plus—92,000 rupees ($1,382)
By comparison, World Bank estimated that an annual salary for a person in India in 2015 was $1,581.60 versus an annual salary of $55,836.80 for an average U.S. citizen.
IDC’s August survey estimated that 27.5 million devices shipped in India during the April-June quarter, a 17.1 percent jump from the previous quarter and a 3.7 percent uptick from a year earlier. Research firm Gartner estimated that India represents less than one percent of Apple’s overall smartphone revenue.
Apple’s smartphone maker’s share in the populous 1.25 billion people country stands at less than a Gartner-estimated five percent. Apple is working to open up retail stores in India and has been attempting to sell refurbished iPhones at a lower price.
The iPhone 7 also went on sale in Ukraine today.
As per authorized resellers and the Apple website, the new phones will be launching in Jordan and Oman on October 15, while October 21 will see the devices launch in Madagascar, Maroc, Maurice and Uganda.
Israel will get the latest Apple smartphones on October 20.
The iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2 are due in Thailand and South Korea on October 21. Apple previously said that the iPhone 7 family was scheduled to launch in Macao, Macedonia, Malaysia, Montenegro, South Africa and Turkey on October 14.
Source: CNBC