Apple has quietly increased the price of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in France, reports iGen.fr [Google Translate]. The 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB variants of the iPhone 5s are now priced at 709€, 811€, and 917€, up from 699€, 799€, and 899€ respectively.
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Meanwhile, the price of iPhone 5c in the country has gone up to 609€ from 599€ for the 16GB model, with the 32GB model now priced at 711€, up from 699€.
Apple released both phones in France and the first wave of countries on September 20, but it unclear why the company has raised prices in the country just weeks after launch. The company does not appear to be citing any increases in taxes being applied in the country, although France is scheduled to implement a minor increase in VAT on January 1. The change also does not appear to be a simple exchange rate adjustment, as other countries such as Germany that also use the euro have not seen any increase.
The quiet price increases are also not the only ones as of late for the company, as Apple also silently raised the prices of Mac mini models in multiple countries last month.
Update: ZDnet.fr suggests [Google Translate] that Apple may be passing along to consumers a tax levied on certain products to compensate for private copying on music and other content. Such levies are used in certain countries on various types of recordable media and storage devices to offset relaxed copyright laws permitting private copying of media, and in some cases as compensation offsetting illegal file sharing. There do not, however, appear to have been any recent changes to that tax rate in France, and thus it is unclear why Apple has raised its prices at this time.
Top Rated Comments
Apple didn't build up $100 billion in cash by giving away nickels and dimes to consumers in the form of taxes, levies or currency exchange rates.
True. But since they didn't have 100B THEN, they might not have been able to afford that luxury. Are you going to argue that they can't do it now?
After that - you can let me know if you're a consumer or a stockholder (or both).
Douche move. With a seemingly high profit margin already, there seems to be little reason for the increase. Even if VAT was raised, which I cannot tell that it has been, it seems like Apple could have just ate the increase. I call this bad press for Apple. As for the increase on the 5c, that was incredibly dumb as it appears there may not be enough value in the 5c as is making the 5S a clear choice in the matter. If it is true that they're cutting production, then increasing the price isn't going to help matters.
Apple didn't build up $100 billion in cash by giving away nickels and dimes to consumers in the form of taxes, levies or currency exchange rates.