Apple Slashes Australian App Store Prices To Match US 81
An anonymous reader writes "It's been a long time coming, but Apple has finally readjusted the price of apps in Australia to match pricing in the U.S. While they remain more expensive than in the U.S., premium apps have still received a price-cut, with $8.99, $9.99 and $11.99 apps dropping to $8.49, $9.49 and $10.49, respectively. Movies and music, meanwhile, remain unchanged. In recent months, Apple has come under fire from consumer watchdogs, angry customers and even the Australian Government for its local price markups."
Shows the benefits of being Apple. (Score:1, Informative)
Even though there's alternatives a lot of Australians have "affection" for Apple and their own percieved apple lifestyle so they'll complain and keep paying up.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
No.
We Australian's are so dumb that we pay whatever is on the price tag. Our dollar is almost 10% higher than the American dollar yet we still pay more than 60% higher for most goods. That is, the same goods that Americans get that come from China. Shit, it is even cheaper per square metre to rent space on a container ship to move goods to Australia than America.
Companies and businesses charge that simply because they can. I think that people here are starting to cotton on though. Hence Australia will
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
anti-American screed
Sure, buddy,
See Australia, like Canada, is in the fortunate position of having vast untapped natural resource reserves and very low populations compared to their land areas. Therefore these are two countries that will always have a future - provided they continue with relatively stable governments, avoid drowning in debt, and avoid getting invaded. For now their currencies are a shelter.
In other words, the value of Australia and Canada have nothing to do with the people in it, just the dirt under their feet? Is that what you're saying?
Let me know how you're doing when Indonesia realizes it has ten times Australia's population, or China realizes it has fifty times Australia's population, and wants liebestraum and those untapped resources. You may whine about Americans now, but you've got a much bigger problem on your doorstep. Tell me what history teaches happens to nations tha
The benefits of being an American ally. (Score:2)
The Commonwealth has no real ability to project power. If Australia were invaded, no other Commonwealth nation has the firepower, the assets, the logistics train, or the economic ability to undertake such a huge and difficult mission. Even the United States, with its unquestioned dominance of the seas and the best logistics operations in the world, takes months to years to build up or withdraw military forces on that scale, and as current budgetary crises show, difficulty sustaining the expense. Aircraft ca
The Prices are now equal (Score:1)
Remember Australian prices include the tax, in Australia that's 10%. Remove the tax and the prices are the same.
Re:The Prices are now equal (Score:4, Informative)
Remove the tax and the prices are the same.
No, it is not. Even if there was parity between the A$ and US$ (which there is not), $0.99 to $1.19 markup would be a 20% tax. A $1.99 to $2.49 markup would be a 25% tax.
Re: (Score:2)
I've already bought some apps for my ipad at the new lower price just because it was cheaper. I am using credit I got from dick smith ($50 itunes card cost me $40). I see woolworths has the same special at the moment.
UK prices have gone up (Score:3)
Norwegian prices also up (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
At the first result in Google I found, 69p = $1.13, so considering VAT it at 20% we've still got a better deal than the tax-free 99 cents Americans pay.
Re: (Score:1)
Thanks - I didn't know that.
Although I suppose my point is really that the 99 cent price is without any sales tax included, and the UK price is less than 20% extra. It's not Apple's fault we have VAT that high.
Apple US UK price differences (Score:3)
"British consumers will have to pay far more than their U.S. counterparts for Apple's latest must-have gadget, the iPad. .. In an effort to explain the price difference between America and Britain, Apple pointed to the fact that there are different, and higher, taxes in Europe, as well as higher transport and other costs" .. link [dailymail.co.uk]
Apple has announced that the starting price in the UK will be £429 for the 16GB model with a wi-fi link to the internet - around 25 per cent more than in America. The equivalent price for the same device there is around £340
Re:Apple US UK price differences (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, this was part of a global adjustment based on the way that the US dollar is traded today.
For the App Store, the international equivalents of the $0.99 apps have changed to the following prices according to MacRumors [macrumors.com]:
UK: £0.59 -> £0.69
Australia: AU$1.19 -> AU$0.99
Japan: 115 -> 85 Yen
Mexico: $10 -> $12
Switzerland: 1.10Fr -> 1.00Fr
Norway: 6.00Kr -> 7.00Kr
Re: (Score:2)
That article is from May 2010, and it is actually inaccurate - the UK price for a 16GB iPad 2 is £399 - still more than the US due to VAT being included in the list price, but less than the £429 quoted.
The difference in price between the UK and US versions is $15 (in favour of the US one) when you exclude VAT and use the current exchange rate.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Steam is well-known to overcharge non-US customers.
Re: (Score:1)
Want to see a real rip-off for Australians? (Score:2)
Check out the prices of Lonely Planet electronic books, Australia vs US & UK [lastcarriage.com]. Utterly disgusting.
Re: (Score:2)
Lonely Planet is an Australia-based company. Maybe this somehow influences prices, perhaps due to tax laws?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Even if they still were Australian-owned, our goods and services tax is 10%, which doesn't even come close to accounting for the price difference (especially given that the UK's VAT is what ... 19% now? I could be wrong there, but I think it's upwards of 17%).
Re: (Score:2)
It's 20%, but books are exempt.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rates/rates/goods-services.htm#7 [hmrc.gov.uk]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do have to pay VAT on ebooks though.
Re: (Score:2)
This needs to be upvoted as it is true. One of the main causes of eBooks being expensive in the UK is the fact that you have to pay 20% VAT on them while you don't on books. That means that if an eBook is the same price as a paperback, then the vendor makes _more_ money by selling the paperback because they don't have to give up 20% of their headline price.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the costs remain though. Printing and distribution only account for something like 12% of a book's cost. The rest goes into author payments, marketing, editing, reviews, formatting and layout (for each format that you plan to distribute e.g. hardcover, trade and paperback), artwork for covers, etc.
None of those costs disappear.
Apple US UK price difference (Score:1)
What about EU prices? (Score:3)
So, when is Apple going to adjust their pricing in the EU? Yes, I know we have VAT tax included in the listed price, but it still does not match up given the current weak US dollar compared to the Euro. Currently, 1 Euro is about 1.42 USD. Apple conveniently prices many if not all of their goods at the same numeric value, e.g. 99 USD and 99 Euros, when comparing US and European prices.
I'll give you a personal example. I recently bought an iPad 2 for work from the Apple Store in the EU. I bought the least expensive 16GB wifi-only model, as that's all I really need. Price: 499 Euro. Same iPad in the US: 499 USD. At the current exchange rate, I paid the equivalent of *709* USD, for the same iPad I can get in the US for 499+tax. And please, don't try to give me that old story that it costs *so much* to ship it halfway around the world, that's BS. When you ship product in large quantities, the cost per device is very small, in the order of a few dollars per device, perhaps 10 in the case of an iPad. In single digit quantities the shipping would be expensive, but not in bulk.
I'll also second the comments on Steam, Valve seem to follow the same rule.
In fact, I have noticed this is a common trend for US companies selling goods abroad, something to rake in a better margin on products sold overseas, whereas most European businesses that offer the same products in the US and Europe tend to even out the pricing according to the value of the currencies.
Re:What about EU prices? (Score:4, Insightful)
Car analogy time. Well, not an analogy, but a real life example.
A Cadillac CTS-V Coupé costs between 65,000-70,000USD depending on what goodies you pick out. In the UK, the same car will net you 70,000-73,000 GBP.
At today's rate, that's 110,000-120,000USD. Almost TWICE the going price in the US.
Things to take into consideration are the UK VAT of 20%, and whatever anti-pollution taxes are put on such a high performance car. But double up?
Compare this to how the price tag on European cars is the same or lower in the US, but in USD compared to EUR.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
One of the many benefits of living in the States, my friend--cheap shit everywhere. Cheap as inexpensive (not cheap as in shitty, but that's a conversation that is already held daily on slashdot when all the cheap assholes complain about Apple prices and swoon over their latest generic commodity shitty electronic component).
I get really pissed off when cheap asses over here complain about $3.50 / gallon gas, $200,000 houses giant houses and $20,000 economy cars. Now we are sniveling about the economy for th
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard this argument before, and it's rather incomplete. You haven't explained WHY it's so cheap here. What is the USA doing right that allows goods to be so much cheaper than in these other places? After all, if a company can build a car and sell it for $20k in the USA (even if it's built in someplace like Belgium), why can't they sell it for nearly the same price in Europe, Canada, or Australia? It doesn't cost that much more to ship cars to Australia, and certainly not Canada.
It sounds to me like
Re: (Score:2)
When your paycheck is worth 2x as one in US Dollars because of the exchange rate, everything costing 2x as much balances out in the end. Taxes are another issue that, like I inferred, the Europeans have adapted to and we AMURRRRICANS! don't understand.
It's not a question of shipping either. You think it costs any more or any less to ship iPads from China to the US compared to shipping them to Europe?
When I lived in England, pretty much everything was the same number price
Re: (Score:2)
Wanna know something sad? A car - virtually ANY car - BUILT in Canada is CHEAPER in the US.
Take the Dodge Challenger, for example. Built in Brampton, Ontario. Base model Canadian price? $26,995 CAD. That's $31,286 US.
Base model US price? $24,895. That's a fucking $6000 difference (~20% markup) for living on the wrong side of an imaginary line.
It's ok though, us Canadians are used to just bending over and taking it, and then begging for more.
Re: (Score:2)
The answer to all these questions about why consumption products in Europe cost more than in the US is really simple, and should be understood by anyone who has ever followed Economy 101. Europeans seem to be willing to pay more for consumption products. If they stopped buying those fruitpads at the customary inflated European price St. Jobs would lower the prices over here. Since they keep on buying, prices stay high. Same goes for just about any other product which can not be stuffed inside a padded envel
Re: (Score:2)
As long as globalization only works for the one behind the cash register I'd say stuff it - I'm voting with my wallet. Of course that means I'm 'confined' to running older, often second hand hardware, but that suits me just fine. I'll order some spare parts from mainland China for next to nothing, have the goods arrive within two weeks, use them to repair the old conker and raise a virtual middle finger to the globalized but strangely territorial peddlers of consumption goods.
Maybe you just need to find sma
Re: (Score:2)
Do the GM assembly plants in the UK even make Cadillacs? If not, then that Cadillac is imported whole and you can probably expect very high import tariffs on top of the VAT.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think that's a good example. 1) It's probably safe to assume Cadillacs don't sell as well in the UK as in the USA due to regional preferences, so it costs GM more to sell them there, after the costs involved in getting them approved for sale by the UK government. 2) Cadillacs in the UK have to be built for RHD, not LHD as in the states. That's an additional cost, again for a much smaller market.
If you want to compare car prices, you need to compare more similar markets. US to continental Europe
Re: (Score:2)
The "apple dollar" is a well-known phenomena among swedish mac users although it has gotten a lot better than it used to be. I remember some guy posting on a forum a bunch of years back when a new version of one of their laptops came out about how he realized it was cheaper to just buy a cheap ticket to NYC, buy a laptop, spend a night in a hotel and then fly back than it was to buy it in Sweden, so he took a two day trip to the US to buy a laptop in order to save money.
Sure, some of it can be explained by
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't sales/VAT tax in Europe just like that in the USA? I.e., it's added after the price, at the register, rather than being built into the advertised price?
When I've seen comparisons of the price differences between things between the USA and other countries, they usually are for advertised prices, not after-tax prices. For instance, compare the price of a car model sold both in the USA and Canada (two very close countries, with nearly identical auto standards and laws). The Canadian prices are much, m
Re: (Score:2)
Well yeah, greed is a big part of it. When I was younger I was a skateboarder and a snowboarder, the markup on skateboards, snowboards and associated clothes and equipment was, at least at the time, amazing. A snowboard that would retail for $600 in the US would retail for the equivalent of $1200 in Sweden. So it's not just tech stuff, it's pretty much any "luxury item".
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, you pay €0.79 instead of $0.99 in the App Store (what this article is about). Also the development program costs €79 instead of $99....
If you remove the VAT it's actually a bit cheaper than the US price...
That iPad you talk about is actually €479, then minus the VAT and converted to dollars it's $595
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As strong as Germany's economy and industrial base is, nothing can make up for hundreds of millions of people who don't want to work and want to collect giant government checks, and have it paid for by people who do work. People are protesting in the streets of Germany these days because of the "lazy Greeks"; they don't want the German government giving them any more bail-outs.
Re: (Score:2)
As strong as Germany's economy and industrial base is, nothing can make up for hundreds of millions of people who don't want to work and want to collect giant government checks, and have it paid for by people who do work.
Nah, all the Germans have to do is get the old freight cars rolling again to er, mobilize the workforce.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, Germany can more than make up for all of that.
Maybe they can, but should they? Will they? It's becoming a real political football in Germany (and other countries like Finland). Some are already wondering how much longer the Eurozone is going to last.
Re: (Score:2)
So does anyone reading this have any answers as to what is causing this? I see people talking about it a lot, esp. with cars, but I've never seen any answers, only lame dismissals like "everything is cheaper in America" without any explanation WHY, but instead with the tone that somehow things being cheaper here is "bad", and that things should be more expensive, just because.
There's something seriously wrong if a Porsche, built in Germany, is cheaper to buy in the USA and ship across the ocean to Switzerl
Re: (Score:2)
POS taxes and corporate taxes on profits earned abroad.
So, yeah, I figure that US companies selling overseas have to cover two expenses and lo and behold, that get passed onto the consumer. So thank you for paying taxes to your country and I hope you enjoyed paying taxes to the US as well.
The US is one of the few countries which taxes corporations on profits earned overseas, it is often used as justification by some for selling companies to other companies outside of the US.
Global Markets and Differential Pricing (Score:2)
This is just a continuation of the phenomena where global companies want to take advantage of geographical prices disparities in both directions. Jobs move to low paying areas to keep costs low, but if anyone tries to buy products from other parts of the world they scream foul play. Look at what happened to CDWOW importing CDs from Hong Kong to Europe, or Tesco importing Levi's Jeans. It's even more pronounced with online digital sales, as EU rules forbid companies from refusing to supply across borders (pr
Re: (Score:2)
The whole per country licensing inside the EU could come tumbling down real soon now if Mrs. Murphy wins at the CJEU.
Apple is not alone (Score:4, Informative)
Full list of price changes and B2B Apps (Score:3)
Am I the first one to point to the full list of price changes [macrumors.com]?
UK: £0.59 -> £0.69
Australia: AU$1.19 -> AU$0.99
Japan: 115 -> 85 Yen
Mexico: $10 -> $12
Switzerland: 1.10Fr -> 1.00Fr
Norway: 6.00Kr -> 7.00Kr
And also interesting (at least for some) is Apple will allow business to sell custom apps to other businesses in volume directly [macrumors.com].
Lip Service (Score:1)
Finally! Some "free market" goodness! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not inexplicable. It's the "I can't believe these idiots keep paying these prices" price hike.
Could it be..? (Score:1)
Could it be that doing business in Australia is more expensive than doing business in the U.S.?
Could it be that the Australian government's asinine knuckle-dragging policies with regard to content, censorship and taxation puts an increased burden on content providers?
Could it be that geography plays a role in increasing the price of infrastructure, both in obtaining equipment and in servicing a country the size of the United States but with 1/15th the population?
Could it be that licensing is more expensi
Re: (Score:3)
Nah. Just mindlessly jump on the Apple-hater bandwagon and demand that the rest of the world subsidize Australia. It's easier, and it's what the mob is doing.
It's only the people who buy Apple products that care, and I doubt they're "Apple-haters". I don't buy Apple products, so I don't give a shit what Apple charge for them in Australia. I do however think they've been taking advantage of the large currency disparity for too long. Of course, Apple seem to agree that they've been charging to much, otherw
Title fail (Score:2)
to match US prices
Summary
they remain more expensive than in the U.S
More expensive != match.