A price index by the Commonwealth Bank in Australia has revealed that Malaysia is the cheapest place in the world to purchase an iPad. As a means of determining whether currencies are valued appropriately, CommSec – a unit in the Commonwealth Bank – has both an iPod and an iPad index.
WSJ states according to the economic theory of purchasing power parity, a product should retail at the same price in every country when converted to a common currency (usually in US dollars). As the chart below shows, that isn’t the even remotely the case. An iPad Retina 16GB (WiFi Only) has a retail price that varies as much as $620 around the world. Argentina’s local price for the iPad is the costliest, at a cool $1094 (around RM3440) while Malaysia has the lowest iPad retail price around the world, at $474 (around RM1490 – pretty accurate to the RM1499 price listed on Apple’s online store).
While CommSec does not have an index for the iPhone, a recent price comparison for global iPhone 5, 5c and 5s prices also reveal that Malaysian retail prices for the iPhone 5 stays largely true to US prices, and the trend should continue with Apple’s latest iPhones.
Cheers for the tip, Laineehhh!
(Source: WSJ)
