“Brexit means Brexit,” UK Prime Minister Teresa May likes to say, as a confirmation that there will be no backing out of this disastrous referendum. But Brexit also means more expensive iPhones in the UK because of the pound dropping in value.MacRumors has a good overview of the price changes, showing that “prices for the iPhone 7 in the UK are £599 for 32 GB, £699 for 128 GB, and £799 for 256 GB, compared to £539, £619, and £699 for the iPhone 6s last year.” That’s a whopping £100, or 14% price increase to local consumers who want the high-end model. As a comparison, the British pound has dropped only about 10% since the Brexit referendum, though that figure is volatile, and Apple is clearly betting on it dropping more in the future. (Note that the iPhone 7 costs $20 more in the US than last year’s models.)
In the Eurozone, prices are up as well, by 45. And other Apple products, from iPads to the Apple Pencil, to cables and adapters, have increased in price.
Gone are the days when multinational companies priced their products to be attractive to locals. Apple doesn’t care if fewer people in the UK can afford iPhones, they just care about getting the same profit margin when the convert the money into US dollars (and sock it away in the Cayman Islands).