Apple Hiring for Future Retail Stores in Brazil and Turkey

It's about time, Istanbul deserves an Apple Store.

Sorry but being from Brazil and living in the US for over 10 years it still drives me crazy that Brazilians HAVE to have whatever is sold in the US. If Americans are buying, that must be cool so we have to have it. Brazilians do not buy iPhones because they are great phones. They buy because they like to show off. I just came back from a business trip to Brazil and could not believe how many people I saw sitting in fancy restaurants with an iPad open sitting on the table just to show others they had it. Same in business meetings when people bring an iPad, open them and leave them on the table again just to show off. I agree that Sao Paulo should have an Apple Store but unfortunately that won’t bring prices down. It will probably be located at Iguatemi or JK Malls where only millionaires can afford and again they will buy devices to show off. Sad!!!!!

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. If you think people spend their hard earned money on very expensive Apple products (much more expensive then their prices in the US) just to show off, you have a very low, prejudicial and biased opinion on your compatriots. Perhaps, you might think we are not allowed to have premium technological products and should be satisfied with the kind of junk that we used to see around here before apple made a more consistent presence in our market. Nowadays, people all around the world are very much alike in terms of taste. Brazilians buy Apple's products despite their high prices not because they want whatever is selling in the US and want to show off, but because they have good taste and want the best product, much like italians, frenchs and americans do. I live here and I also see people all around in schools, universities, malls with their iPads and iPhones and I think it is just awesome! Perhaps, you think people should hide their products - please, don't bring your iPad, otherwise people will just think you are showing off, you are such a snob! Let me tell you why people don't do that: they just don't think people will interpret them the same way you are, because that is just a prejudicial way to think about it. To assume people are pulling their iPads from their back packs in a caffe just to show off says more about you than it says about them. Perhaps you have spent too much time in the US and think people in brazil don't have the right to own premium products because it somehow contradicts some subverted logic you have that just because you don't make as much money, you can't have this or that. They pay for those products more than americans and people from other countries do, that is a certain fact, all you have to do is visit apple.com/br and see for yourself. And if despite that we still buy those products, is because we can and earned that right.

Yay, Turkey! My mom's brother-in-law is from there. Beautiful country.

Brazil is still a very poor country, shall we look at the numbers?

Germany x Brazil

Brazilian Population: 199,321,413
German Population: 81,305,856

GDP in Brazil: $2.324 trillion (US Dollar)
GDP in Germany: $3.139 trillion (US Dollar)

And who is comparing Brazil to Germany or saying that Brazil is much richer than these countries? OF COURSE there is a lot of poverty, just like there is a lot of poverty in places like the US, Greece, Italy, France and Belgium (have you been to some banlieues in France, to Wallonia in Belgium or shanty hells like New Orleans or Detroit in the US?).

My point is that Brazil is ALREADY the 4th largest IT market, just like it is the 4th largest car market in the world. Does that mean everyone in the middle of the State of Amapá is able to buy an iPhone? Of course not.

But to say that Brazil doesn't deserve an Apple Store is to disregard even Apple Management's own assessments that the country is a major demand target.

So stop babbling nonsense or performing armchair analyses. I am Brazilian and I have also lived for many years outside the country for professional reasons - I know both the good, the bad and the ugly in my home country and don't need to spit out old "we are a developing country" stereotypes anymore.

I'm Brazilian,

No doubt, Brazil is a growing country...
But Middle Class people do not have money to afford apple products, that's a myth.

The only way Middle Class will afford apple products is threw money loans, financed by European and American banks.

So far that works, we see a lot of Brazilians in New Cars etc.
On a long term? We all know how Brazil will pay out its debts :)

As a Brazilian you should know better, then, instead of replicating mongrel dog complexes (i.e., everything Brazilian is bad, everything foreign is good). The middle class ALREADY has money to spare in electronic devices by the boatload - are Apple devices expensive? Sure. That doesn't mean there aren't at least 50 million people easily able to buy them in Brazil.

Sorry but being from Brazil and living in the US for over 10 years it still drives me crazy that Brazilians HAVE to have whatever is sold in the US. If Americans are buying, that must be cool so we have to have it. Brazilians do not buy iPhones because they are great phones. They buy because they like to show off. I just came back from a business trip to Brazil and could not believe how many people I saw sitting in fancy restaurants with an iPad open sitting on the table just to show others they had it. Same in business meetings when people bring an iPad, open them and leave them on the table again just to show off. I agree that Sao Paulo should have an Apple Store but unfortunately that won’t bring prices down. It will probably be located at Iguatemi or JK Malls where only millionaires can afford and again they will buy devices to show off. Sad!!!!!

I am not a millionaire and have been several times to the shopping malls named above. Surely they are not for the poor strata of the society, but WHICH malls containing Apple Stores are, in the world?

Apple has ALWAYS targeted retail stores in upscale areas of any given country - do you see any Apple Store in Eastern D.C. neighborhoods? Never.

Same for China, which already has a bunch of official stores even though MOST of the Chinese don't even earn a buck per day.

An Apple Store in the best areas of SP, RJ, PR or RS is a logical and foregone conclusion already - just deal with it. As for Brazilians "showing off", this is normal behavior for a country which still deals with Apple devices as luxury items - once their prices reach normal, mainstream levels, they are gonna be a commodity just like any other appliance...and if they DO NOT reach lower prices once taxation goes down, it's simply because of a very basic principle of supply and demand: prices are set on the basis of how much people are willing to pay on average.

Go buy any clothing item in Switzerland, JUST to see exactly the SAME item being sold for half the price across the German border, even if production costs do not change - alas, people are still willing to pay more in CH.

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I paid U$ 795 for an 64gb wifi only iPad made in Brazil, considering the sale tax in US, it is almost the same price they are selling there.

This sounds like good news to me, then - prices are decreasing even faster than I'd thought in Brazil. But are you talking about the iPad 3 or what?

Same in Greece, but apple decided to make a store in Turkey before making one in Greece :S
Too bad they don't seem to care about their customers...

Greece cant afford apple products right now :p

(... goes into hiding)

Seriously, google favelas.

While you are at it, feel free to google "New Orleans" or "Detroit" as well.

The culture of show off will never end in Brazil. Brazilians buy anything that they see Americans using and do not even research to know if that is good or not. They just HAVE to have it. The Duty Free Shop at arrival in Sao Paulo sells GAP and Banana Republic. Are you kidding me? It is like buying Hering t-shirts in US dollar to showing off here in the US. I am always amazed with the requests from friends and co-workers every time I am traveling to Brazil. I would love to see the day when Crest toothpaste, Centrum vitamins and other basic stuff becomes mainstream in Brazil so people can stop asking for that from the US. Also, people that can afford an iPhone or an iPAd in Brazil also have to afford a bullet proof car and can only show off those gadgets inside malls or fancy restaurants because if they do so on the streets they won’t last more than 1 minute. Again, I would love to see my country change but it will probably not happen in my generation.

A country only changes if its people change it - so you're not off to a good start when you, like many other "mongrel dog" Brazilians, don't consider yourself part of the "people".

In any case, you have answered your question yourself - people only show off what is still not deemed as mainstream. Once Gap shirts are commonplace, no one will care about them and will then move on to "higher" targets.

I actually have a different opinion: in my last visit to my home country, I saw that people are increasingly becoming indifferent to things like smartphones or fashion items - and why? Because they are much more mainstream nowadays.

Likewise for imported cars, some models of which are still regarded as "luxury" in Brazil mainly because of high taxes, whereas they are extremely popular or even cheap in other countries...once every Joe Carioca out there is able to afford a BMW (like in Switzerland or Germany), you won't see Brazilians drooling at them anymore...just so that they can perhaps drool at Bentleys, as people still do in Western Europe.

Because Brazil is the world's 4th largest IT market, with a gigantic middle/rich class willing to pay premium prices for Apple devices, even with all the tax imposition that exists there. In fact, a local retail Apple Store makes more than sense there, since local production has already started to lower the historically-high prices in the country

So the equation fits: local production + local logistics + local retail = lower prices and much higher sales numbers.

Is that reason enough for you?

I paid U$ 795 for an 64gb wifi only iPad made in Brazil, considering the sale tax in US, it is almost the same price they are selling there.

Taxing in Turkey is as much as in Brazil I guess.

The distributor in Turkey sells and gives support for Apple products.

Buying it in Euro currency(instead of $) and distributor's profit+tax= High prices in Turkey.


We are waiting for Apple Store's instead of Apple Premium Reseller

Wow!!! I thought we were getting ripped in the US lol.

Is avg income higher there atleast?

No, it's not (although per capita GDP is growing fast in the country). However, the upper middle class and richer classes have a lot of money and ARE willing to spend whatever it takes to have an Apple device.

In any case, I must agree with Akzel on one point: it's not ONLY about taxes; it's also about higher logistical costs AND the magic component of WILLINGNESS to pay (also known as "welfare" in Economics).

Just like places such as Switzerland, richer Brazilians still lack the collective sensitivity or transparent information to demand lower prices when compared to other international markets.

This happens mostly because the complex taxation system allows companies to mask their profit margins behind the excuse that fiscality is the sole responsible for those ridiculous prices...

This happens a lot in the automotive market in Brazil as well (where even locally-produced cars are sold in neighboring countries for MUCH lower prices even when all taxes are taken out of MRSPs).

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No offence but brazil is also still developing country.

You mean like the US?