iPhone 7 UK price pushed up by £100 after Brexit

Apple does its accounting in dollars, so the plunging value of has led the iPhone to approach £1,000

Andrew Griffin
Thursday 08 September 2016 02:57 EDT
Comments
The new iPhone 7 and a pair of AirPods
The new iPhone 7 and a pair of AirPods (Getty)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The iPhone is now significantly more expensive, apparently because of the currency chaos caused by the Brexit vote.

Some versions of the iPhone are now £100 more expensive than they were. And those dramatically raised prices appear be a consequence of the weaker pound.

And the change doesn't just affect the new iPhone 7, which Apple just introduced. At the same time as it updated its store with the new phone, Apple pushed prices up across the board — with Macs, accessories and other products also becoming more expensive.

That didn't happen in any other stores. In the US, which is the only place Apple shows prices for on stage, the price was the same as the iPhone 6s despite an increase in the storage options.

But in the UK, the cheapest version of the iPhone 7 — the 32GB model of the non-Plus handset — now costs £599. The equivalent version of the 6s cost £539.

Those price hikes go up accordingly across the board, so that the top end version of the phone — the 256GB iPhone 7 Plus — is now £100 more, at £919.

Apple does its accounting in dollars. So when the value of the pound drops, each sale is worth less to their revenues — and so the company adjusts its prices to make sure that its already weakening profits aren't dented.

The company blamed global currency fluctuations for its first drop in profits after a record run, earlier this year. CEO Tim Cook said that since two-thirds of the company’s profits are generated outside of the US, such movements had a “very meaningful impact on our results”.

5 things to expect on the new iPhone 7

The new phone will be available for pre-order from 9 September, and will go on sale a week after.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in