Well, here we go again. As Apple together with its retail and telco partners are gearing up to release the new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in Malaysia, two of the most important details that users need to know if they planning to buy either of these devices have also been revealed: their release date and prices.
For our market, the iPhone 8 can be obtained on 20 October for RM 3,649 and RM 4,399 with 64GB and 256GB storage respectively. As for iPhone 8 Plus, the 64GB variant is priced at RM 4,149 while the 256GB model is listed at RM 4,899.
So, how these prices fare against other markets throughout the world? Let’s start with iPhone 8:
As you can see above, iPhone 8 prices in United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and UAE are significant lower than Malaysia. That being said, we didn’t have it as bad as consumers in Europe, India, Russia, and South Africa that have to fork out even more for their iPhone 8.
The same observation also holds true for iPhone 8 Plus, as you can see in these tables:
With differences of up to RM 908, it is not easy to ignore the extra amount of cash that consumers in Malaysia have to fork out for their iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus next week. It is hard to pinpoint the exact reason behind the massive differences although usual suspects such as currency strength and taxes are likely part of it.
While we are not the only one in this situation and those who want to get their hands on either of these devices would likely brush off the figures above, this pretty much showed that the iPhone’s premium status still remained intact.
Then again, the series’ upcoming family member – iPhone X – which costs even more than the iPhone 8 Plus 256GB variant might have elevate the series premium status even further.
