New research into what a new 13’’ Macbook Pro costs in various countries shows that South Africa is one of the most expensive countries to purchase this device.<\/p>\n
The cheapest country which formed part of this investigation is interestingly not the United States (coming in second with a price of $1199), but rather Hong Kong with a price of $1197.66. Australia was third with a price of $1434.62, followed by the UK at $1482.44, Luxembourg with $1564.50 and Norway with $1728.08.<\/p>\n
According to the study South Africa was the second most expensive country surveyed with a price of $1760.79 for a new 13’’ Macbook Pro. Brazil was the most expensive at $2068.39.<\/p>\n
“I was convinced that South African prices were the highest in the world, owing to the lack of an official Apple presence in the country. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Brazil’s prices were between US$300.00 and US$1,200.00 higher than here,” said Matthew Hart from Cmplay who conducted the study.<\/p>\n
Consumers have long complained about the high prices of Apple goods in South Africa – and typically blame the local Apple distributor Core Group – but Core Group Executive Director RJ van Spaandonk previously said that people generally don’t take everything into account when doing pricing comparisons.<\/p>\n
Van Spaandonk explained that online prices in the US for Apple products exclude sales tax and VAT, which means that people must accommodate for this discrepancy when doing pricing comparisons. He added that his company engages in what is called forward cover which means that an exchange rate is locked in – often at a higher Rand\/USD ratio than current currency values. <\/p>\n
Van Spaandonk has also previously said that it is not accurate to compare local Apple pricing to that in the United States as Core Group source Apple products from Europe rather than the US. Pricing comparisons with EU based territories may therefore make for a more accurate pricing comparison.<\/p>\n
SA Apple Macbook pricing<\/strong><\/a> – comments and views<\/p>\n Cmplay Macbook Pro pricing comparison graph<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n