The iPhone Duo now has an official price in Spain, and probably more than one person has had to look twice at the figure to check that they hadn't misread it. Apple's first foldable iPhone starts at €2.339, positioning it not only as one of the most expensive iPhones we've seen, but also as one of the most exclusive phones on the market. We knew Apple wasn't going to enter the foldable segment at the lower end, and we didn't expect its first generation to be budget-friendly, but so easily surpassing the €2.000 mark puts the iPhone Duo in a rather peculiar category. The feeling intensifies when we look at its price in the United States and do a quick dollar-to-euro conversion. However, that comparison is somewhat misleading.
The main reason is one that appears practically every September and is worth remembering: in the United States, Apple announces its prices without taxes. In other words, the price we see in the US Apple Store is not necessarily the amount a customer will end up paying when they buy the phone. There, a sales tax exists, the percentage of which depends on the state and can even vary by city or county. In some places, it's very low, while in others, the final bill increases considerably. That's why Apple can't advertise a single final price including taxes for the entire United States. In Spain, the opposite is true. The €2.339 listed in the Apple Store is the amount we'll pay at checkout and already includes our 21% VAT. Therefore, directly comparing the US price before taxes with the Spanish price after taxes is comparing two figures that represent different things.
We can do a very simple exercise to understand how much that VAT weighs. If we remove the 21% tax from the 2.339 euros that the iPhone Duo costs in Spain, we are left with a pre-tax price of approximately 1.933 euros. That's a much more useful figure to compare with the price announced by Apple in the United States. And this is where the difference starts to seem far less outrageous than those 2.339 euros initially suggested. Obviously, this doesn't mean the VAT magically disappears from our bank accounts. Spaniards will still have to pay it, and those approximately 406 euros that correspond to the tax are part of the device's actual cost. But it's important to differentiate what part of the price Apple sets and what part corresponds to taxes. Otherwise, it's very easy to conclude that the company has simply decided to charge us several hundred euros extra for living in Spain.
To all this we must add another ingredient that is especially important this year: the exchange rate. Apple does not convert its US prices to euros simply by using the exchange rate found on Google that same day. International companies need to establish relatively stable prices over long periods and protect themselves against potential currency fluctuations. Apple sets its own price equivalencies, taking into account the euro's performance against the dollar, the margins required for each market, and other costs associated with selling its products in different regions. This also explains why European prices can rise even when the US price of a given product remains unchanged. And when we're talking about a device that already costs around €2.000 before taxes, any small additional percentage quickly adds up to tens or even hundreds of euros. On a €700 iPhone, this might be less noticeable. On the Duo, every little bit hurts.
I also think we have a tendency to use the US price as if it were the "real" price of a product, and all others were inflated versions of it. It's understandable because Apple's presentations use dollars, and those numbers end up being our first reference point, but commercially it doesn't work that way. A US buyer may also find that the final price of their iPhone is higher than advertised when it comes time to pay. The difference is that we see the full impact from the start. If Apple displayed the price excluding VAT in Spain, the iPhone Duo would appear at around €1.933, and the initial perception would likely be very different. Then we'd get to the shopping cart, find over €400 in taxes, and probably think of someone, but the comparison with the United States would be much more intuitive.
None of this changes my conclusion about the product, however: €2.339 for a phone seems absolutely outrageous. We can perfectly explain how that figure is calculated and acknowledge that Apple isn't directly pocketing the entire price difference between the United States and Spain, while still considering the final result obscene for the consumer. The iPhone Duo inaugurates a new category within the Apple ecosystem, and the first buyers are going to pay the price for being pioneers. It's a technically ambitious, different, and undoubtedly spectacular device, but for that money we can buy a very serious MacBook. A conventional iPhone and an iPad, or a combination of Apple products that's much more useful for most people. Perhaps in two or three generations, Apple's foldable phone will become relatively commonplace. For now, the iPhone Duo is a technological demonstration with a starting price of €2.339. And while much of the price difference compared to the United States has a tax explanation, knowing where the hefty price tag comes from doesn't make it sting any less.