Live data from Hacker News

iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

indiatoday.in

51–60 of 259 posts

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#51

> It is no secret that the taxes and duties that are applied to imported phones are highest in India. The taxes are so high that for an important iPhone that you will end up paying an average tax of Rs 24,000 for something like an iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Mini. > However, despite the sky-rocketing prices, iPhone still sells best in India and the buyers give whatever price Apple asks them to pay. So for a business, that…

More like the government is incompetent for failing to use policy to move manufacturing to India and instead raising prices for the average consumer.

Unless they're subsidizing the airlines.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#52

How exactly do you avoid customs when flying back? Electronics is cheaper in US but every time I fly back to Europe they check my bags.

You have an allowance for "personal goods", such as a phone [0]. In this case it's probably borderline illegal (IANAL), but I suppose people would throw away the box and everything while abroad.

Whenever I flew in France from outside the EU no one asked me where I bought my phone, laptop or camera. Anecdotally, several times I was carrying camera gear bought from the US because it was cheaper to pay for shipping + VAT + taxes than buying locally...

[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=legissum...

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#53
post #28

Same in Brazil, here the import taxes are crazy, coupled with regular taxes it amounts to 100% (doubling the price). In the case of the iPhone you might need to find a cheap flight to the US, but a Macbook will land you a couple days in Disney.

I came to say this, but since you already said, another information: Some years ago a lawmaker calculated the taxes for game consoles and concluded they are 273% of the US price. Also when Sony was heavily bashed for the price of Playstation 4 at launch, people claiming they were price gouging, Sony blamed taxes, so I went and calculated the taxes myself, as if my store would sell it (I own a store but sell other stu…

Yup. It's actually remarkable to me that the Brazilian government continues to add these taxes that, last I checked, were highest in the world.

The original justification was that it would spur domestic manufacture of computers, consoles, laptops, etc.

Obviously that hasn't happened. All it's done is make anything involving computing ridiculously expensive.

I truly don't understand why there isn't democratic pressure to repeal the insane import duties on electronics. It's like most people in Brazil have just accepted that's how domestic prices are without really questioning it. I don't get it.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#54
post #29

How exactly do you avoid customs when flying back? Electronics is cheaper in US but every time I fly back to Europe they check my bags.

Which country? My friend just told me that the stuff they ordered in bulk from China to Europe entered the customs area in Hungary. In theory the customs rules are the same wherever you enter the EU, but I guess these companies have found a "port" where the checks are more lenient or less rigorous (saving time and money, not go to around the law). From anecdotes only, German customs are thorough, they check every par…

In the UK I get every single parcel from the US intercepted, but I've never had anything intercepted when ordering from Hong Kong.

In theory both the US and HK should be taxed the same.

The most annoying thing is the Post Office charging a handling fee on top of any tax due...

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#57

Same in Brazil, here the import taxes are crazy, coupled with regular taxes it amounts to 100% (doubling the price). In the case of the iPhone you might need to find a cheap flight to the US, but a Macbook will land you a couple days in Disney.

Prices of electronics are insane in Brazil. I'm Polish, so we don't have as cheap electronics as US does, but still. I tried to find a laptop for my Brazilian friend and the prices were often double the prices of here too. Not only that, but they were the older models, e.g. a laptop here with SSD and GTX 1650 would have HDD and GTX 1050 there for twice the price.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#58

I'm sorry but other than brand value, what do Apple products get Indian users that simply cannot be got from other companies? If the price from a trillion dollar company is this costly, then vote with your wallets for god's sake. Simply don't buy. There are (fortunately) plenty of viable alternatives to Apple that are more reasonably priced.

Why do people drive Teslas instead of Hondas?

iPhones are the best product on the market, and not everyone is price-conscious.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like the government is incompetent for failing to use policy to move manufacturing to India and instead raising prices for the average consumer.

If the govt reduces taxes, doesnt that incentivize apple to just make them elsewhere and ship to India? I thought high taxes are the incentive to start manufacturing or assembly locally.

High tariffs are an incentive. Not taxes. Import tax == tariff basically.
Post reply on HN