Apple Increases Prices in Japan by Up To 25%
Apple today increased the price of iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch models in Japan by up to 25 percent.
The price hikes, first reported by Nikkei Asia, have been triggered by a fall in the value of the yen and a widening interest rate gap between Japan and the United States.
The iPhone 13 previously started at 98,800 yen (~$730) in Japan, but now costs 117,800 yen (~$870), an increase of almost 20 percent. The latest iPhone SE with 64GB of storage now costs 5,000 yen (~$37) more than before at 62,800 yen (~$464). The 128GB iPhone 13 Pro now costs 22,000 yen (~$162) more than before at 144,800 yen (~$1,069).
Apple raised the prices of Macs in Japan last month by over 10 percent alongside the launch of the M2 MacBook Pro, so no Mac product lines were further increased in price today, although iPad and iPad Air models increased by 10,000 yen (~$74) each.
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Top Rated Comments
Countries which currencies that appreciate against the USD never gets a cut, Apple simply pockets the difference.
Case in point, Swiss Francs is up +70% the last 20 years but we never got a price reduction.
As such, they definitely aren’t having any inflationary spiral right now. Just for comparison, the IMF projects that the inflation in the UK will be 7.4% this year and less than 1% in Japan. (Both figures are from April, so I’d say they are widely outdated by now).
I believe these price adjustments are mainly due to interest rate differences (as the FED began rising interest rates), which made the JPY depreciate (or the USD appreciate).
Sorry for the very technical analysis! I love economics :)
Apple always raises it prices when a country's currency drops against its base currency (USD).
Last time it did so with the Turkish Lira a few months ago. Why, because it need to repatriate those revenues in USD and can not / will not expose itself to currency losses. (Apple does generally not engage in currency hedging)
The Swiss franc has for 20 years have gone up against the USD, yet our price ratio to US store has stayed the same.
2002: 1 USD = 1.75 CHF
2022: 1 USD = 0.95 CHF