It's something that I often hear, but each time I check, the difference is minimal. So I did the comparison again between France and the US, for an iPhone 14 (unlocked, 128 GB) + AppleCare+.
I take the phone unlocked, with AppleCare+, to attempt a normalization across regulations. Default warranty in the US is much weaker than in the EU, but should be the same with AppleCare+. Buying a locked phone is also cheaper in the US, but AFAIK it's not possible to buy a locked phone in France anymore.
US: 978 USD (excluding sales taxes), France: 1198 EUR (TTC, including sales taxes) or 998 EUR (HT, excluding sales taxes), so about 992 USD at current rate. So the iPhone in France costs about 14 USD more, or 1.45% more. That's not "much more" in my book, although it is a little bit more.
I think the common mistake is to compare European prices with sales taxes (20% in France) against US prices without sales taxes... Hint: prices displayed on the Apple store in the US are always displayed without sales taxes, while in the EU prices always include sales taxes (I'm not sure it's true in all 27 member states, but it's definitely true in France).
The difference is in salary, not price. iPhone costs as much in USA as EU in absolute terms, but when that’s 50% of your monthly income, you go buy a cheap (or telecom sponsored) Android. It won’t be a flagship Android but at least there’s an option you can buy that on paper has all the same specs.
Indeed, I would have agreed 200% with the following: "In Europe Apple stuff costs much more, relative to income."
But I've read so many times (on French forums) people argue that Apple is overcharging EU citizens by forgetting to adjust for sales taxes that I defaulted to interpret "In Europe Apple stuff costs much more" that way.
In a way it makes sense, in France what you see is what you get, so the typical French consumer expects the sticker price on the US Apple Store to be the final price. In fact it's the law: in France you have to honor the sticker price, even if it's wrong (unless it's an obvious mistake, but the bar for obvious mistake is quite high).
Well there is a big difference in sales taxes. When I first started regularly going to USA some friend or another would always ask to bring back an iPhone. Because sales tax here is 7% and VAT is 22% back home.
Ah yes, a friend of mine figured it was cheaper to fly from EU to nyc, buy a couple of macbook pro and come back, than to just get them in a shop here.
