In India, the fastest way to get people talking about your ‘extravagant’ lifestyle is to buy an iPhone. Anybody around you who doesn’t have an iPhone is going to come back to you with taunts that can broadly be classified into 3 categories
- The Envious – ‘Haan haan, bade paise uda raha hai aaj kal!’
- The Enlightened – ‘I would never spend so much on a phone, dude! It’s just … criminal. Think about world hunger. And poverty.
- The Economist – ‘You could have bought a cheaper phone and invested in mutual funds that would have got you 10% over the next … zzzz!
But … here’s the thing – We believe that only in India does buying an iPhone involve parting with an arm and a leg or trading in your first born child. No, no, no! Not at all. When you come right down to it, Apple does not play favourites and demands an obscene amount of money from one and all.
Countries Paying the Maximum Price for iPhones
Where the average Indian shells out $842 for an iPhone, our Brazilian compatriots have to part with an additional $265 for the same device. For those who aren’t nifty with mental math, that’s $1107! Second in line are the Turks who end up paying $1015.92 for their iPhones! In fact, when it comes to being robbed of one’s hard earned money, India is at a happy 11th position, with countries like Sweden ($876), Hungary ($871), Indonesia ($863), Russia ($860), and China ($851) being slightly more unfortunate than us.
How Many Indians Can Afford an iPhone
However, when you look at affordability, India doesn’t do so well. One iPhone costs almost 27% of our median annual household income. Yeah, we weren’t all that great economics either, but what that basically means is that one household in India can only buy 3 iPhones every year as compared to the US, where each household can buy more than 60 phones a year!!
The Surprise Winner!
Boohoo US! You’re still not the cheapest place to buy an iPhone. Your ice-covered cousin Canada wins (gasp!) the top position by a difference of $2. So there!
What’s that saying about misery loving company? We can’t help moan our fate as we reluctantly pay through our noses for our favorite iPhone. But, the thought that there are other countries where people are wailing even louder does bring some comfort to us. It even makes us smile!