The price of the iPhone 14 it has not risen in the United States, but it has done so in Spain, and the same has happened with other technological products of great interest to the consumer, such as PS5, a console that has gone from costing 499.99 euros to going up to 549.99 euros, and that will soon be two years old. the market and the normal thing would be for its price to begin to fall. In the United States, the price of PS5 has not risen either.
These two movements have a very simple explanation, a very easy-to-understand why that is summarized around a concept that many of you will already have clear, the value of the euro against the dollar. The start of the Ukrainian war generated a marked uncertainty at the international level which profoundly affected both society and the economy, and sowed the ideal breeding ground for the dollar to reach parity with the euro.
That parity hurts us, and a lot. The loss of value of the euro against the dollar makes imports more expensive, and it also has a huge impact on the cost of materials since the dollar is the reference currency in this regard. To understand why it harms us, we could give many examples, but in reality two are enough.
When the euro had a value of 1.2 dollars, we could import products 20% cheaper compared to the current euro-dollar parity. Also think about what this parity means when converting prices and applying taxes. For example, the iPhone 14 Pro costs 999 dollars in the United States, if we convert the price to euros and apply taxes we see that:
- With a conversion of 1.2 dollars per euro the price without taxes would be €799.2. By applying taxes (21% VAT) that figure would rise to 967 euros.
- With a parity conversion (1-1) the price of the iPhone 14 Pro before taxes would be €999 in Spain. By applying 21% VAT we would have a cost of 1,208.9 euros.
It is true that Apple has rounded the price upand that in the end the final cost of the iPhone 14 Pro has been higher than what we would obtain with the direct conversion and the application of taxes, but this does not change the main reason What is behind this increase?
Some technological giants, such as Microsoft and Nintendo, have assured that they do not plan to raise the price of their products “for the time being”, but this does not mean that increases cannot be produced in the short or medium term. On the other hand, numerous rumors suggest that the next big releases from Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and Samsung, among others, they will have a higher price not only in Spain, but also in the entire euro zoneand the main culprit will be that parity between the dollar and the euro.
It may be that in some cases the big ones opt for fully or partially absorb the impact of that euro-dollar parityand that this allows us to keep prices at a level closer to what we are used to, but in any case this It will be the exception and not the rule.
Obviously other things also influence the price of technologysuch as the scarcity of certain materials and the consequent increase in price of these, but in the end that parity between the euro and the dollar is what is hurting us the most when we talk about general consumer electronics. Will this situation continue forever? No, obviously not, once that economic uncertainty begins to dissipate and the waters return to normal, we can expect a slow recovery at all levels, including technology prices.
