Apple is Planning to Lower iPhone Prices in India. Yes, Really!

As an aftermath of more than disappointing sales, Apple has revealed its intentions of cutting iPhone prices in India and other emerging markets. This plan was announced by Tim Cook while speaking about Apple’s quarterly results for last year’s holiday period (in which iPhone year-on-year sales fell for the first time).

Rising Dollar + Customs Duties = High Prices

The obvious blame for low iPhone sales falls upon the exorbitant prices in developing marketing like India. And as much as Apple haters might like to blame the tech giant for pricing their phones unreasonably, it isn’t actually entirely their fault.

The other blame deserving parties are the dollar conversion and custom duties, something that even the oh-so-powerful Apple can’t control. The surge in the value of the dollar against local currencies has meant that while the iPhones were priced according to their usual levels of expensive in the US, they went up to jaw-dropping levels of expensiveness in other countries. In India itself, the iPhone Xs came with a price tag of Rs. 92,433 while it retails at $999 (about Rs. 70,000) in the US. So basically, between the conversation rate and import duties, Apple lovers outside the continental US are screwed.

Falling Sales + Market Potential = Price Cuts

It seems like Apple was the one who was truly screwed as they experienced such a huge dent in sales that they were left with no option but to make the monumental decision of slashing prices overseas – something that’s only happened once before in the last 12 years.

However, even if lowered prices help sales, they’ll end up damaging Apple’s bottom line as they will be bearing the brunt of the rising dollar rather than passing it on to their customers as was initially planned.

Tim Cook and the team have still decided to take a calculated risk by adjusting the prices of the latest iPhones to mirror local prices of previous models. An important decision in the opinion of Apple’s Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri who said, “Roughly 60 percent of our services business is outside the United States, and as you know, the U.S. dollar has appreciated in recent months, and in general, we tend not to reprice our services for foreign exchange on a very frequent basis.” So if they’re doing it now it means that things is looking pretty bleak at the Apple headquarters.

Will Indians Rejoice?

The exact reduction in price or the list of countries where the discounts will apply haven’t been announced but we are hopeful that India will feature in the list because iPhone sales are nosediving in the country and Apple has already acknowledged the problem.

But a word from the wise (and weathered by Apple’s disappointments), don’t get your hopes up until there’s a direct announcement from the company itself. Until then all we can do is wait and shell out 100 bucks for the milk to bribe the Gods with.