Re:iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to...
by sangnoir on Thursday October 22, 2020 @12:44PM
(#24860035)
This is not a tax issue, but induced by existence of dual exchange rates. I'm guessing due to the limits, most phone resellers have to obtain their US dollars from the black market at higher rates, resulting in higher local pricing. Only those who are well-connected or buy dollars in low volumes can get adequate sums at the official rate, and even then, the arbitrage opportunity may be too good to miss out on, which results in prices close to black market rates, regardless.
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Re:iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to...
by 0559980836 on Thursday October 22, 2020 @01:51PM
(#24860933)
People have been doing this since before dual exchange rates were (re-)introduced a year ago. There's a bit of everything, really.
- Some shops operate at the "blue dollar" value, out of necessity because they buy the products they sell at that rate, or trying to obtain a bigger profit from the things they bought at the official rate.
- Some shops operate at the official rate, but their products just get crazy high taxes (cars, for example).
- Some shops operate at the official rate and sell their products at that rate approximately. Some big tech manufacturers fall under this category, Apple products being the biggest exception as shown above (but there are many others). Fun fact: the inflation and the option to pay these products in no-interest instalments sometimes make products cheaper than in the US, accounting for the future devaluation of the peso.